The Writing of Renaissance Politics

What is it about?

Princely letters are some of the most characterizing (textual) objects of the European Renaissance. But who really are the "epistolary princes" that are so ubiquitous in Renaissance political archives? Scholarship still abides by reassuring models in which princes personally held a firm, top-down control on their epistolary identities. The present article questions this assumption. Based on a material analysis of princely letters, its argument is that their authorship was - like that of all contemporary texts - open for sharing, and even appropriation by third parties.

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Why is it important?

In recent years, scholarship has realized that letters were fundamental units of late medieval and early modern state-building and governance. Yet, scholars have made little effort to scrutinize the letters' authorship. This article fills this gap, showing how the "epistolary prince" that is to be found in archives can - and should - be understood as a complex and plural institution, rather than an individual. This has the potentil to re-structure our perspective on Renaissance politics in a more collaborative and realistic way.