Emperors and Imperial Discourse in Italy, c. 1300-1500
New Perspectives
Anne Huijbers (dir.)
Publications de l’École française de Rome, 2022
Describing the Holy Roman Empire after 1250 as a hopeless dream or an empty formula only Roman in name, historians have long minimized the impact of the imperial presence in late-medieval Italy. The nationalist historiography, on which we still largely depend, presented the Empire as alien to the very essence of humanism and modernity. Associating humanism with republicanism, scholars silently suggested that the belief in the peace-bringing em...