Periodic Reporting for period 4 - RISK (Republics on the Stage of Kings. Representing Republican State Power in the Europe of Absolute Monarchies (late 16th - early 18th century))
Période du rapport: 2022-10-01 au 2024-03-31
When we think of the so-called Ancien Régime, i.e. the period of the European history between the Renaissance and the French revolution (late sixteenth - late eighteenth century), we usually believe that Europe has been marked by the rise of a unique political model: the absolute monarchy. Hence, our ideas about early modern cultural production, which includes poetry, art, and theatre, tend to focus either on the context of this political model (the court) or on his leading actor (the king). This ERC project studied an alternative genealogy for Europe’s identity, for it analyzed how power and society were represented in the European states that had no king to celebrate: the Italian city-states that maintained their independence throughout this timeframe (Venice, Genoa, Lucca), the Republic of Ragusa (today in southernmost Croatia) and the Dutch Republic.
In early modern Europe the representation of power was a comprehensive audio-visual expression, pivoting on several media. Writing merged not only with music, visual arts, and performance, but also with technological devices such as smoke, fountains, and fireworks; therefore, a true multimedia experience was created. There is no doubt that a sweeping metamorphosis affected this experience after the end of the Renaissance, and this transformation primarily concerned the figure of the king. During the Ancien Régime, the king went on stage, as he played the ancient hero (e.g. Caesar, Hercules) or the pagan deity (e.g. Jupiter, Apollo). The king appropriated mythological and literary characters to exploit the force of their cultural legacy, and, in so doing, his dramatic persona - i.e. his figure as presented to and perceived by others - came to be the focus of a large propaganda campaign.
However, there was no king to celebrate in the republican states. Their figureheads, the doge (Venice, Genoa), the stadtholder (the Dutch republic), the rector (Ragusa), and the gonfalonier (Lucca), had neither a divine right to invoke nor an absolutist persona to stage. When they filled their leading political position, they were not consecrated, but simply elected. They did not dress in the over-the-top mythological disguises worn by the king, because their bodies could not fit the body politic of the state.
In this respect, early modern republics seem to have little to do with the political ritualization of absolute monarchies. Yet, are we sure that republican culture and civic ritual are not affected by the metamorphosis shaping the image of kingship during the so-called Ancien Régime? Republics eschewed any vestiges of monarchy to state their independence; still, they could not but refer to the same historical framework, marked by spectacular displays of ceremonial pomp, magnificent and clockwork rituals, and centralizing power.
This project studied republican pageantry and cultural production in their multimedia appearance, and took into account a multidisciplinary corpus of sources, including both texts and images. By comparing the representation of kingship and the staging of the republican state, this project did not merely expand the area of inquiry - from absolute monarchy to seventeenth-century republicanism - but rather opened a whole set of new questions. To what extent does the absolutist framework influence the display of republican ideals such as freedom, equality, and the common good? How may the rhetorical devices of baroque culture extoll a power that does not apply to someone (the king) but rather to something (the republic and republican virtues)?
In early modern Europe the representation of power was a comprehensive audio-visual expression, pivoting on several media. Writing merged not only with music, visual arts, and performance, but also with technological devices such as smoke, fountains, and fireworks; therefore, a true multimedia experience was created. There is no doubt that a sweeping metamorphosis affected this experience after the end of the Renaissance, and this transformation primarily concerned the figure of the king. During the Ancien Régime, the king went on stage, as he played the ancient hero (e.g. Caesar, Hercules) or the pagan deity (e.g. Jupiter, Apollo). The king appropriated mythological and literary characters to exploit the force of their cultural legacy, and, in so doing, his dramatic persona - i.e. his figure as presented to and perceived by others - came to be the focus of a large propaganda campaign.
However, there was no king to celebrate in the republican states. Their figureheads, the doge (Venice, Genoa), the stadtholder (the Dutch republic), the rector (Ragusa), and the gonfalonier (Lucca), had neither a divine right to invoke nor an absolutist persona to stage. When they filled their leading political position, they were not consecrated, but simply elected. They did not dress in the over-the-top mythological disguises worn by the king, because their bodies could not fit the body politic of the state.
In this respect, early modern republics seem to have little to do with the political ritualization of absolute monarchies. Yet, are we sure that republican culture and civic ritual are not affected by the metamorphosis shaping the image of kingship during the so-called Ancien Régime? Republics eschewed any vestiges of monarchy to state their independence; still, they could not but refer to the same historical framework, marked by spectacular displays of ceremonial pomp, magnificent and clockwork rituals, and centralizing power.
This project studied republican pageantry and cultural production in their multimedia appearance, and took into account a multidisciplinary corpus of sources, including both texts and images. By comparing the representation of kingship and the staging of the republican state, this project did not merely expand the area of inquiry - from absolute monarchy to seventeenth-century republicanism - but rather opened a whole set of new questions. To what extent does the absolutist framework influence the display of republican ideals such as freedom, equality, and the common good? How may the rhetorical devices of baroque culture extoll a power that does not apply to someone (the king) but rather to something (the republic and republican virtues)?
The project has gathered, ordered, and analyzed a wide range of republican displays of state power, with respect to every European republic that maintained its independence between the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century: Venice, Genoa, Lucca, Ragusa, and the Dutch republic. An interdisciplinary corpus has been surveyed, including both texts and images: literary works like panegyrics, laudatory treatises, and civic orations, but also tragedies and libretti staging Republican figures and values; paintings and engravings, portraits, or etchings displaying elections and ceremonies; and finally, written accounts of public festivities, both as regards archive documents and printed literary sources. By mapping the internal shifts and diversity within early modern republican production, RISK proposed an overall reassessment of the century and a half that goes from the end of the Renaissance to the beginning of the Enlightenment, showing that an alternative genealogy for Europe’s identity, including both republican and monarchical elements, is possible.
To undermine disciplinary boundaries, a multidisciplinary research team has been formed. The background and primary expertise of the five postdoctoral researchers and the two PhD students that have been hired concern fields as diverse as political, intellectual, and cultural history, drama studies, literary studies, and book history. This strong interdisciplinary approach is mirrored by the work performed in terms of a) scientific outcomes and publications; b) workshops, conferences and dissemination events; and c) nonacademic dissemination and communication events.
To undermine disciplinary boundaries, a multidisciplinary research team has been formed. The background and primary expertise of the five postdoctoral researchers and the two PhD students that have been hired concern fields as diverse as political, intellectual, and cultural history, drama studies, literary studies, and book history. This strong interdisciplinary approach is mirrored by the work performed in terms of a) scientific outcomes and publications; b) workshops, conferences and dissemination events; and c) nonacademic dissemination and communication events.
In order to take into account such a multi-layered topic as the representation of republican state power in the Europe of absolute monarchies, RISK developed new interpretative frameworks, by connecting, combining and interpolating several disciplines and scientific approaches. In particular, the aim of the research group has been to integrate the different case studies, which were studied separately in the first phase of the project, within a comprehensive transnational framework. To achieve this objective, RISK members worked together, comparing their results, highlighting national specificities, and stressing wider commonalities in relation to qualitative aspects such as rhetorical devices, figural processes, and iconology.