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More recently, Mannerist villas such as Hellbrunn, with their trick fountains and automata, have been compared to modern amusement parks. However, the allegorical figures in painting and sculpture played a more significant role in the political and religious propaganda than previously assumed.The interpretation of the allegorical paintings in the ceremonial hall («Festsaal») of the palace built by Prince-Archbishop Markus Sittikus has long been a subject of debate concerning certain depicted figures. While the connection to references from Cesare Ripa's Iconologia was recognized early on, the presence of an overarching program has been called into question. As will be demonstrated, the previous analysis of the allegorical personifications falls short. The conceptual and historical context of the images becomes fully apparent only when considering the explanatory texts by Cesare Ripa, which served as the source for the imagery.The paintings by Donato (Fra Arsenio) Mascagni exhibit a representation of emerging absolutist thought in line with the Counter-Reformation period. The images are deliberately employed to convey a politically ethical and religious message. Mascagni draws upon the concept of «Ragione di Stato», aligning with contemporary Christian political doctrines that explicitly oppose the teachings of Niccolò Machiavelli. The use of Ripa's painting templates and, in particular, the archbishop's motto situates the ceremonial hall within the tradition of Neoplatonic Renaissance philosophy, which rejects the materialistic worldview of Lucretius and evokes late echoes in the post-Tridentine era. A comparative analysis of the influences of religious and philosophical concepts in the Mannerist garden complexes is still outstanding. In the case of the Orpheus Grotto in Hellbrunn, with its unique combination of Orpheus and the motif of the «sleeping nymph», these influences can be well substantiated due to their connection to the motto in the «Festsaal».&nbsp

A tangle of themes cluttered the pen of the 16th-17th-century polygraphers, but some more than others impressed them by their political urgency. This was the case with the dramatic Flanders Wars and the geo-political lacerations that religious conflicts entailed in Europe in the late 16th century and the first four decades of the following until the conclusion of the Thirty Years’ War. Giovanni Botero, author of The Reason of State but also of the Universal Relations, was among the first – in the wake of Antonio Possevino, Cesare Campana and Guido Bentivoglio – to narrate the events from a decidedly pro-Spanish perspective, yet attentive to the motivations and successes of the Dutch rebels, perceiving the harsh consequences triggered by confessional quarrels. How much could the Vicenza-born Gualdo, military man, witness and historiographer, make of this in his Historie delle guerre di Ferdinando II e Ferdinando III and in Guerriero prudente (1640)? What are the points of contact, then, with Campeggiamenti nelle Fiandre (1638) by the Jesuit Emanuele Tesauro, also a witness and historiographer in that case? Apart from palmistry comparisons, the contribution aims to grasp the close relationship between those baroque authors and their contemporary history, declined in the form of a living, fitting, reportage in fieri.

In hisLibro Histórico Político, Solo Madrid es Corte(1658), the royal chronicler Alonso Núñez de Castro, defined Court as the head that governs; where reason and the king (as head of his kingdoms) his councilors, vassals, and other important men reside. Núñez, emphasized Madrid’s population, listed its councils and described their functions, in detail explained the etiquette observed around the King’ body, and included the hierarchy of all his kingdoms and provinces in the Spanish Habsburg empire, offering detailed accounts of their finances and contributions to the royal treasure. The work, in fact, established the imperial space (and geography) of the larger Spanish Habsburg political body, with Madrid as its courtly and political-cultural head. In its structure and arguments, Núñez’s work followed principles established at the end of the 16thcentury by Giovanni Botero as characteristic of a great city and in works describing the greatness of Lima and of the city of Mexico. A comparison of Madrid with other courtly cities of the Spanish Habsburg Empire helps elucidate reasons for its low profile as referent in the documentation of the New World, despite its place after 1561, as the political-administrative head of the empire. El cronista real Alonso Núñez de Castro en suLibro Histórico Político, Solo Madrid es Corte(1658), define a la Corte cómo la cabeza que gobierna, dónde reside la razón, y el rey (como cabeza de los reinos), sus consejos, vasallos y hombres importantes cercanos a él. Núñez enfatiza la población de Madrid, enumera los consejos del rey y sus funciones, describe detalladamente la etiqueta observada en la Corte alrededor del cuerpo del rey, incluye la jerarquía de la totalidad de reinos y provincias del monarca, y da cuenta detallada de sus finanzas y contribuciones al erario real. Esta obra produce/establece el espacio (y geografía) imperial del cuerpo político de los Austrias españoles con Madrid como su cabeza cortesana y político-cultural. También se conforma a estructuras y argumentos similares a los que Giovanni Botero, a fines del siglo XVI, definió como característicos de una gran ciudad como cabeza, y los que describen las grandezas de Lima y de la ciudad de México. Una comparación de Madrid con otras ciudades-cortes del cuerpo político de los Austrias españoles, ayuda a entender su bajo perfil en la documentación del Nuevo Mundo, a pesar de su lugar a partir de 1561 como cabeza político-administrativa dentro del imperio.

International audience; Trad. par G. Azzolini de: "Romain Descendre, L'État du monde,: Giovanni Botero entre raison d'État et géopolitique, Genève, Droz, Cahiers d'humanisme et Renaissance, 2009""In meno di dieci anni Giovanni Botero pubblica tre libri che eserciteranno una vasta e profonda influenza: Delle cause della grandezza delle città (1588), Della ragion di Stato (1589) e Le Relazioni universali (1591-1596).Oltre a inaugurare la letteratura della ragion di Stato, Botero elabora una teoria della crescita urbana e getta le basi della moderna geografia politica. Impegnato a ribadire il controllo dell’autorità ecclesiastica sugli Stati temporali, egli studia attentamente nuovi oggetti – come la circolazione delle ricchezze, la popolazione, il territorio, l’equilibrio di potenza – ed escogita adeguati strumenti di governo.Nella lettura di Romain Descendre, le pagine di Botero offrono un ritratto politico della prima globalizzazione, basato sull’idea che città, Stati o imperi si rafforzino non solo con l’arte militare, ma anche con la mobilitazione di saperi economici, demografici e geografici. Una lezione che questo importante libro, finalmente tradotto in italiano con l’aggiunta di una Nota dell’autore e una Prefazione del curatore, riscopre in tutta la sua attualità, restituendo a Botero il posto che merita nella storia del pensiero politico."

International audience; Natural objects, geographical elements, sources of life, political borders, commercial routes, rivers are a fundamental presence in the world traced by Giovanni Botero in his famous works the Relazioni universali. For Botero, giving "full information" about the world also meant describing in detail the watercourses that flow through it, in their different physical qualities and interactions with the people who live along their banks. In the Relazioni universali, rivers constitute a kind of subset of the world that reflects all its variety. For historians, they can prove to be an object that allows us to go through the work transversally and to question the different operations that its author uses to observe in its entirety and complexity a world whose contours gradually extend and whose internal spaces become more precise. The analysis of their presence also makes it possible to reflect on the way in which knowledge from different fields, genres and origins are broken down and recomposed under Botero's pen, within epistemological and narrative strategies.The knowledge about rivers that the Relazioni universali produces and disseminates is examined here by crossing different analytical perspectives and attempting to construct a dialogue between the work, other pieces of Botero's production and some contemporary reflections on these rivers and their features.; Oggetti naturali, elementi geografici, sorgenti di vita, frontiere politiche, arterie commerciali, i fiumi sono una presenza fondamentale nel mondo tracciato da Giovanni Botero nelle sue celebri Relazioni universali. Dare «piena notizia» del mondo significa per Botero anche descrivere nel dettaglio i corsi d’acqua che lo attraversano, nelle loro diverse qualità fisiche ed interazioni con le popolazioni che ne abitano le rive. Nelle Relazioni universali, i fiumi costituiscono una sorta di sottoinsieme del mondo che ne riflette tutta la varietà. Per le storiche e gli storici, possono rivelarsi un oggetto che consente di percorrere trasversalmente l’opera e di interrogarsi sulle diverse operazioni di cui il suo autore si serve per osservare nella sua interezza e nella sua complessità un mondo i cui contorni si estendono progressivamente e i cui spazi interni si precisano. L’analisi della loro presenza permette anche di riflettere sul modo in cui saperi, conoscenze e informazioni di diverso ambito, genere e provenienza, si scompongono e si ricompongono sotto la penna di Botero, all’interno di strategie epistemologiche e narrative specifiche e in funzione delle preoccupazioni e degli obiettivi che gli erano propri. Il sapere sui fiumi che le Relazioni universali producono e diffondono sarà qui esaminato incrociando diverse prospettive di analisi e tentando di costruire un dialogo tra l’opera, altri tasselli della produzione boteriana e alcune riflessioni coeve su questi corsi d’acqua e le loro caratteristiche.

International audience; Cette contribution est consacrée à la section sur les Christiani d'Asia, dans le deuxième livre de la troisième partie des Relationi Universali (RU), parue à Rome en 1595. En particulier, il se concentre sur la description des Églises syriaques qui constituent, comme nous essayerons de le montrer, un ensemble homogène au sein de la description plus large des Églises orientales. A travers la recherche et l'analyse des sources littéraires et documentaires mobilisées par Botero, l'article propose aussi une reconstruction de la perspective et des finalités de cette portion de l'oeuvre botérienne, dans le contexte plus large des relations diplomatiques et doctrinaires entre Rome et les Églises orientales.

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International audience

International audience; C’est dans la Rome de la fin du XVIe siècle qu'ont vu le jour les 'Relazioni universali' de Giovanni Botero, une œuvre qui décrit l'état du monde contemporain sous différents angles. Fondé sur une recherche collective qui a réuni des universitaires de différents horizons académiques et disciplinaires, ce volume entend explorer, à partir des 'Relazioni universali' et de la trajectoire intellectuelle et institutionnelle de leur auteur, les dynamiques de production de connaissances sur le monde en un lieu et à un moment précis : 'l'Urbs', à l'heure de la recomposition d'une curie post-tridentine qui étend de plus en plus son action et ses savoirs sur une échelle mondiale.; Nella Roma di fine Cinquecento vedono la luce le Relazioni universali di Giovanni Botero, un’opera che descrive da prospettive diverse lo stato del mondo contemporaneo. Fondato su una ricerca collettiva che ha riunito studiose e studiosi provenienti da diversi ambiti accademici e disciplinari, il volume intende indagare, a partire dalle Relazioni universali e dalla traiettoria intellettuale e istituzionale del loro autore, le dinamiche della produzione dei saperi sul mondo in un luogo e in un momento specifico: l’Urbs al tempo della ricomposizione della curia post-tridentina sempre più proiettata su una scala globale

L���exception �� la loi comme attribut de la souverainet�� : ainsi s���inventerait la modernit�� politique, qui fait s�����vanouir les r��gles du bon gouvernement. Son examen, jusqu����� la raison d�����tat, peut en effet r��v��ler la formation de la gouvernementalit�� moderne., Exception to the law as an attribute of sovereignty: this is how political modernity would have been invented, putting aside the rules of good government. Examining it, until the emergence of reason of State, can indeed reveal the shaping of modern governmentality.

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L�����tat est souvent consid��r�� comme un organisme vivant qui subit des contrecoups violents produits par les �� troubles �� religieux et politiques qui mettent en p��ril sa survie. Le maintien de l�����tat devient alors une question de prophylaxie publique. Les exemples de Machiavel et Botero permettent de mieux comprendre cette analogie entre m��decine et politique �� la Renaissance et nous am��nent �� situer les remarques de Montaigne sur l�����tat dans une logique de conservation d���un corps malade., The State is often seen as a living organism that suffers violent repercussions from religious and political turmoil and therefore threaten its survival. Maintaining the State then becomes a matter of public prophylaxis. The examples of Machiavelli and Botero allow us to better understand this analogy between medicine and politics in the Renaissance and lead us to situate Montaigne's remarks on the State in a logic of conservation of a sick body.

In 1588 Giovanni Botero published The Causes of the Greatness of Cities. The third book of this short treatise, proposed in the appendix of this brief note, contains the first nucleus of a Malthusian population theory. Although he did not fully anticipate all the ideas that Thomas Malthus exposed over two hundred years later, Botero can be considered the most conscious initiator of modern demographic thinking.

Antonio Serra aurait dû être considéré comme le fondateur de l’économie politique avec son Bref traité (1613) bien avant Adam Smith. Son œuvre n’a cessé de susciter l’intérêt. Les Discours de Marc’ Antonio De Santis (1605) représentent une analyse originale des opérations de spéculation sur le change.

Dans la péninsule italienne, à une quarantaine d’années de guerres incessantes fait suite, à partir de 1494, une longue période de paix relative jusqu’à la fin du xviiie siècle. Florence, Venise et Rome sont alors les trois espaces culturels et politiques où naissent les réflexions les plus importantes – et les plus « européennes » – sur la question de la guerre et sur le déploiement d’un « après-guerre ». Après la pensée florentine qui articule politique de conquête et nécessité de la conservation en temps de guerre, « l’après-guerre » s’inscrit dans une tension potentielle, sinon permanente, entre l’impossibilité de la paix et l’acceptation de la domination politico-militaire. La compréhension des effets de cette situation peut passer par l’éloge de la neutralité et de la pacification des rapports de force, notamment dans la pensée vénitienne. Dans cette perspective, la paix constitue un cadre à la fois imposé et en mouvement. Le questionnement concerne du coup ce que la guerre transmet à l’après-guerre. Puisque la guerre est une expérience radicale, une expérience de la limite, elle est du coup porteuse d’un savoir qui acquiert une nécessité : de ce fait, ce savoir continue d’informer la réflexion, même quand la conjoncture s’est modifiée du tout au tout. Ainsi, même lorsqu’on fait passer les raisons de la conservation avant celles de la conquête, on ne remplace pas la guerre par la paix. On a cessé de penser qu’après la guerre était la paix : bien au contraire, on a placé la guerre au principe de la paix. After forty years of incessant wars begun in 1494, the Italian peninsula is experiencing a long period of relative peace, until the end of the 18th century. Florence, Venice and Rome are at that time the three cultural and political spaces that give birth to the most important – and the most “European” – thinking upon the question of war and “post-war era”. After Florentine political thought and its connection of conquest politics to conservation in times of war, the “after-war” is always virtually tensed between the impossibility of peace and the consent to political and military domination. The understanding of such a situation is expressed by the praising of neutrality and pacification of power relations, in particular in venetian thought. In this perspective, peace is in the same time an imposed and a mobile framework. At stake is what does war transmit to after-war. Since war is a radical experience, a limit-experience, it brings a knowledge that gains necessity: therefore this knowledge continues to inform the reflection even when the circumstances are totally different. Even when the reasons of conservation are placed before the reasons of conquest, war is not replaced with peace. It is not thought anymore that after war comes peace: on the contrary, it is considered that peace has its origins in war.

International audience; Edition critique de "Delle cause della grandezza della città" Ed. originale : Botero Giovanni, Des causes de la grandeur des villes [édition, traduction, notes et postface de Romain Descendre], Paris, Editions Rue d’Ulm, 2014, 188 p.

[A cura di Pierre Benedittini ; a cura di Romain Descendre ; introduzione di Romain Descendre]; International audience; Edition critique de « Della ragion di Stato » (1589-1598) [A cura di Pierre Benedittini & Romain Descendre ; introduzione di Romain Descendre]Comprend la version italienne de l'introduction parue dans : De la raison d’État, Paris, Gallimard, 2014

[A cura di Pierre Benedittini ; a cura di Romain Descendre ; introduzione di Romain Descendre]; International audience; Edition critique de « Della ragion di Stato » (1589-1598) [A cura di Pierre Benedittini & Romain Descendre ; introduzione di Romain Descendre]Comprend la version italienne de l'introduction parue dans : De la raison d’État, Paris, Gallimard, 2014

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International audience; To carry out the recent French editions of Giovanni Botero, De la raison d’État and Des causes de la grandeur des villes (The Reason of State and On the Causes of the Greatness of Cities), three activities that are maintained more often distinct were closely coordinated: scientific publishing, translation and interpretation. The article shows how this approach was necessary and fruitful, taking the examples of the title and of the definition of Stato (Stato è un dominio fermo sopra popoli) in the book on reason of State. It then becomes clear that “translate” means “deeply understand the moving forces, the issues and effects of lexical and conceptual choices made by an author”.; Pour réaliser les récentes éditions françaises de Giovanni Botero, De la raison d’État et Des causes de la grandeur des villes, trois moments que l’on maintient le plus souvent distincts ont été coordonnés étroitement : édition scientifique, traduction et interprétation. L’article montre en quoi cette démarche était nécessaire et féconde en prenant les exemples du titre et de la définition de Stato (Stato è un dominio fermo sopra popoli) du livre sur la raison d’État. Il devient clair que « traduire » signifie alors « comprendre en profondeur les ressorts, les enjeux et les effets des choix lexicaux et conceptuels effectués par un auteur ».; Per realizzare le recenti edizioni francesi di Giovanni Botero, De la raison d’État e Des causes de la grandeur des villes (Della ragion di Stato e Delle cause della grandezza delle città), sono stati coordinati strettamente tre momenti che vengono il più delle volte mantenuti distinti: edizione scientifica, traduzione e interpretazione. L’articolo mostra che un tale approccio era necessario e fecondo, analizzando il titolo e la definizione di Stato (Stato è un dominio fermo sopra popoli) del libro sulla ragion di Stato. Diventa chiaro che «tradurre» significa allora «capire profondamente gli stimoli, le poste in gioco e gli effetti delle scelte lessicali e concettuali di un’autore».

édition, traduction, notes et postface de Romain Descendre

Édition, traduction et notes de Pierre Benedittini et Romain Descendre ; Introduction de Romain Descendre

Giovanni Botero è nominato segretario dell'arcivescovo Carlo Borromeo. L'ascesa di un gesuita indisciplinato, dall'insegnamento alla congregazione dell'Indice. Ragion di stato e ragion di chiesa: il rilancio dell'egemonia cattolica come risposta alle guerre di religione. Le Relazioni universali: una enciclopedia per un mondo globalizzato dal colonialismo e dai missionari.