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147: Geopolitics of Early Modern Age: Conflicts, Authors, Maps and Perspectives of a Global World
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| Session Abstract | |
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The session aims to bring together scholars who, from different perspectives, are investigating authors, cartographic representations, political theories and interpretations of the early modern age (16th-17th centuries) from a geopolitical perspective. Starting from a lively debate on the topic, which in both the historical and geographical spheres has become particularly fervent and highly topical in recent years, the primary objective of the session is to stimulate academic discussion in an interdisciplinary sense around the geopolitical dynamics that have unfolded since the early modern age. The European opening to global spaces through political treaties, concrete actions and trade routes; the political spatiality that was determined with the rise of nation states; the conflict dictated by the primacy of the territorial factor; the increasing relevance of borders in relations between states; political realism as an emerging theory for interpreting political modernity; and cartographic representation as an indispensable tool for political projects within and outside the European context, have determined the fundamental contours and the foundations of what we now call “geopolitics”. There is in fact a geopolitical dimension of the Early Modern Age that still needs to be properly explored and that can represent a fruitful field of dialogue of enormous scientific interest for the community of scholars of political geography, historical cartography, history of exploration, history of the modern age, political philosophy and economic history. Contributions concerning the geopolitical dimension of early modernity will therefore be welcome, both in its historical dynamic and in the theoretical-conceptual dynamic of authors who have emphasised the geopolitical features emerging in political thought between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In addition, contributions will be considered that highlight the geopolitical dimension proper to emerging globalisation and historical issues of the early modern age, cartographic representations and the production of maps, atlases and globes, political authors and theories, territorial expansions and border diatribes. | |
| Presentations | |
On the political use of geography. The case of Gabriel Chappuys Università degli Studi di Genova, Italy In my contribution, concerning the figure of Gabriel Chappuys, I would point out the historical relevance of a collection of chorographical writings put together by the French Chappuys as secretary and interpreter of two kings of France, Henry III and Henry IV: L'Estat, Description et Gouvernement des royaumes et républiques du monde tant anciennes que modernes (1585). This work presents itself as a wide combination of travel accounts, summarized treatises on constitutions, translations from ancient political masterpieces, excerpts drawn from lenghty writings on foreign institutions all brought together to forge an editorial product which, even if not so original as for its contents, is worth some interest with regard to both the final aim of the draft itself (the assertion of France's political greatness in relation to the European geopolitical context) and the specific historical context in which the work came into existence. In the wake of Jean-Marc Dechaud and Jean Balsamo's scholarship, the intellectual profile of Chappuys, especially as for the prominent role he played in the field of translation of Italian classics (such as Giovanni Botero, Baldassarre Castiglione, Stefano Guazzo, Francesco Guicciardini, Ludovico Ariosto) has become the object of growing interest by scholars, mostly French, mainly concerned with the cultural connections between late-Renaissance France and Italy or the French reception of Italian texts in the late 16th century. As I have partially put forward in some recent essays, to approach the figure of Chappuys means looking to a political actor who made use of his linguistic skills, as secretaire du roi, to participate in the rule of State and promote some specific arts instrumental to the good practice of government. Of course, in this context also geography, as part of a comprehensive project of appreciation of the world, in the extremely multiform variety of its expressions, appears to be a field of knowledge indispensable to all those having political tasks or bureaucratic offices such as princes, rulers, advisers, ambassadors, ministers, statesmen. officers and, obviously, like Gabriel Chappuys himself, secretaries. I aim at highlighting the crucial role of geography, through a comparative study of the work mentioned, as a repertory of strategic information useful to found and preserve the status of the French monarchy. The Effectual Truth, from Machiavelli to Venetian ambassadors and beyond Iternational Studies Institute (Florence), Italy Abstract Drawing on the results of recent publications (Testa 2023 and Testa 2024), the paper illustrates the origins of the geopolitical discourse in sixteenth-century Italian context, with special attention to the discourses of political realism, theory and practice. The comparison between European (and non-European) states, their constitutions, customs, political agendas, spheres of influence, borders, and international interests, grew from the gatherings in the Florentine Oricellari Academy (ca.1516-1522; Gilbert 1964, Comanducci 2014), to the Venetian Academy (1557-1561) created by ambassador Federico Badoer. Badoer’s letter to his friend at the papal court, Andrea Lippomano (ca.1554), affirms that “Cosmography, is essential for the stateman… it brings sound information about the princes’ character, customs and personal characteristics, the way courts are governed, and their military strengths, … about many nations that exist today, and not just with regard to those that are usually mentioned, but also with regard to those which, through war or peace, can be taken into account.” The fulfillment of such plan is the anonymous miscellany Thesoro politico (1589), printed under false address. This political manual combines theory and practice: an essay about the ideal prince, is followed by the first printed edition of Venetian ambassadors’ reports, confidential instructions to cardinals and papal nuncios, and discourses about the most important and urgent geopolitical topics of the time: the Conclave; the election of the King of Poland; the way to carry out a successful ambassadorial mission to the Swiss Grisons; the authority of the pope over the emperor; a report discussing the meetings that led to the creation of the anti-Turk league; and one report describing the truce agreed in Nice between the French King Francis I and the Emperor Charles V. After illustrating the content of some of the writings, the paper ends by drawing a comparison between Thesoro politico and Henri de Rohan’s On the interests of Christian Princes and States (1638), which Friedrick Meinecke saw as key to the political discourse about reason of state in 17th c. European literature. Geostrategic Rhetoric of the Map: Decorative Elements on Early Modern Cartographic Representations of the Adriatic Sea 1Department of Geography, University of Zadar, Croatia; 2Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies, Zagreb, Croatia As media, early modern maps and nautical charts served as an important but subtle means of communication between different actors. They also played a role in promoting state interests, whether through producing and presenting knowledge about a particular area or establishing of territorial control and power. Nautical cartography was particularly important for coastal areas and played a key role in the construction and understanding of geographical reality, as a primary source of information. In addition to representing of spatial relationships and content, great attention was also paid to the aesthetics of cartographic representation, including the iconographic embellishment of maps with various decorative elements. The cartographic repertoire of decorative elements arose from the expectations of a broad public on the one hand and of commissioners, patrons, and sponsors on the other. In the early modern period, most of today’s territory of Croatia was border territory between the Habsburg Monarchy, the Ottoman Empire, and the Republic of Venice. The geostrategic position of the Adriatic at the intersection of various European political-imperial and confessional systems, each representing its own interests and territorial claims, influenced the shaping of the region's political, economic, and cultural landscape and its cartographic patterns. Those patterns refer primarily to the influence of the Republic of Venice, in particular the depictions of the north-eastern Adriatic coast in the early modern period. The most important maps of Venetian provenance were created by the official cosmographer of the Republic of Venice, V. M. Coronelli. Such iconographic content in cartographic depictions of the Adriatic was frequently adopted by other European cartographers, along with their cartographic practices and traditions. This study analyses the rhetoric of cartographic decorative and imagological elements on selected early modern cartographic representations of the Adriatic of different provenance. A detailed analysis of selected cartographic representations of the Adriatic revealed forms of communication through decorative images such as compass roses, vedute, ships, sea monsters, images of saints, people, and others. The aim of the study is to evaluate the communicative capacity of symbolic decorative elements as carriers of ideological, political, cultural, and other symbolic messages on cartographic representations. Preliminary research suggests that decorative elements on maps and nautical charts were an essential communication tool for conveying geopolitical, cultural, and religious messages, which also engraved territorial, ideological, and cultural boundaries. Given the important geostrategic and economic interests in the cartographic representation of the Adriatic, the Republic of Venice took on a pioneering role. The Heritage of Mural Cycles. The Symbolism of Power from the Modern Age to Contemporaneity: the Case of the Cartographic Cycle of the Palazzo Aeronautica in Rome Università La Sapienza di Roma, Italy During the Age of Exploration, with the European acknowledgment of the existence of a “New World” and with the rediscovery of Ptolemy’ s Geography everyone became interested in geography and cartography to the extent that it became fashionable to decorate palaces and villas with cartographic representations. These mural cycles were designed around a main theme, mainly regarding a global and geopolitical vision of the world and a territorial dominance. According to Schulz, they are the first evidence of the use of geographical maps as images serving political power (Schulz, 2006). The interpretation of the cycles is strictly connected to the production-related information, and their messages can be extrapolated from the analysis of their original location and the political and religious ideology of the committee. These cartographic cycles are a proper vehicle useful to build religious supremacies, political legitimacy or to spread universal knowledge (Fiorani, 2007). This could be achieved thanks to the combination of elements that carry a semiotic meaning which convey messages of power and contribute in the formation of specific mindsets. An aspect that has often been overlooked, considering these cycles just as mere artistic works. It is believed that mural cycles were designed and created solely during the Sixteenth century, and there are no further examples of them afterwards. Aim of this contribution is to prove that mural cycles with geographical themes and political and propagandistic intentions have also been created during the following centuries and to highlight which elements of these cycles were inherited from their renaissance prototypes, mainly focusing on the case study of the Rooms of Maps in the Palazzo Aeronautica of Rome, built during fascism in 1931. After a semiotic and critical study of the maps, useful for the acknowledgment of their meaning, and a geopolitical reading of the historic cartography, the contribution will bring out the parallelisms that occur between the cycles, highlighting which communicative methods of the Sixteenth century are also present in the maps of the Twentieth century, establishing a continuum which will prove that the practice of the mural cycles and its purpose survived the Early Modern Age. | |