Governing from elsewhere

Abstract

Since Plutarch, political literature has been teaching princes how to choose between offering and withdrawing, between public exposure and the shadow of secrecy. Places of power, in their very architecture, put these dilemmas to the test. Such is the case of the palace of Urbino, where we analyze the distribution of spaces, from theatrium to the studiolo. But all this presupposes that managers are willing to play the game. What happens when they don't, and prefer to shirk the business of ruling ? The case of Louis XI illustrates this temptation to escape : it doesn't simply consist in setting up secluded retreats or residences, but in envisaging the possibility of governing from elsewhere, from an imaginary place. This refuge can be of beauty or madness, as we suggest by analyzing the passage, in Antonio Averlino'sTrattato di architettura , known as the Filarete, from the desire to build an ideal city to the temptation of heterotopia, which worries more than it consoles.

Contents

• Between the shadow of the arcana imperii and the harsh light of overexposure : the chiaroscuro visibility of Pericles (Vincent Azoulay, Pericles. La démocratie athénienne à l'épreuve du grand homme, Paris, Armand Colin, 2010)
• Plutarch'sParallel Lives , or the dialectic of offering and withdrawal
• Trajan, Plutarch and the grieving widow : portrait de l'empereur en miséricordieux (Priscille Aladjidi, " L'empereur Trajan : un modèle imaginaire de la charité royale dans les miroirs des princes de la fin du Moyen Âge " in Anne-Hélène Allirot, Gilles Lecuppre and Lydwine Scordia eds, Royautés imaginaires (XII^th -XVI^thsiècles), Turnhout, Brepols, 2005)
• Latin translations of Plutarch during the Renaissance (Olivier Guerrier, Visages singuliers du Plutarque humaniste. Autour d'Amyot et de la réception des Moralia et des Vies à la Renaissance, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2023)
• The heroic pantheon of Vespasiano da Bisticci
• Federico da Montefeltro inognito in Urbino
• Palatial architecture, or the impossible solitude of the prince
• The cliff and theatrium : The two faces of the Palazzo ducale d'Urbino (Patrick Boucheron, De l'éloquence architecture. Milan, Mantua, Urbino (1450-1520), B2, 2014)
• The gradients of public space : when the architecture of places of power hinders, feints and filters
• " What the princely studiolo has the function of bringing to the surface is the very mystery of its interiority, its aura of unknowability " (Daniel Arasse, " Frédéric dans son cabinet : le studiolo d'Urbino ", in Le sujet dans le tableau. Essais d'iconographie analytique, Paris, Flammarion, 1997)
• When King Louis XI doesn't play the game : head and headgear
• Les entrées royales négociées, ou évitées (Joël Blanchard, " Le spectacle du rite : les entrées royales ", Revue historique, 305, 2003)
• The Lantern Effect, or princes' architectural escapes that distract from public visibility
• In Pienza, the ideal city of Pius II Piccolomini
• Further on : the utopian horizon of princely desire
• Portrait of Antonio Averlino, known as the Filaerete, as a thwarted architect
• Le Trattato di architecttura, or the eroticization of the art of building (Patrick Boucheron, "  Fragmentsd'un dépit amoureux : Filarete, de la ville idéale à l'utopie ", D'ailleurs. Revue de l'école régionale des beaux-arts de Besançon, 2010)
• From Sforzinda to Gallisforma : the revenge of an unbridled imagination
• L'utopie console, l'hétérotopie inquiète : l'horizon foucaldien des lieux de pouvoir
• De Charles VI à Louis XI, la folie du roi, dernier refuge (Bernard Guenée, La Folie de Charles VI, roi Bien-Aimé, Paris, Perrin, 2004)
• Prison as a place of power ? When the absence of the king strengthens the presence of the state.