Translatio imperii: the end of the Iberian golden age and the gestation of the Sun-King monarchy

• Grant number: 14/12766-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Post-doctor
• Effective date (Start): November 01, 2014
• Effective date (End): June 30, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - Modern and Contemporary History
• Principal Investigator: Paulo Celso Miceli
• Grantee: Mariana Osue Ide Sales
• Supervisor: Pierre Civil
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Research place: Université Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris 3, France
• Associated to the scholarship: 12/23154-0 - Translatio imperii: The end of the Iberian golden centuries and the gestation of the Sun King monarchy (1615-1661), BP.PD

Abstract

Prime Minister of France (1643-1661), Giulio Mazarino was also a great bibliophile. He was one of the most important libraries of Europe of his time, considered also the first French public library.Its profusion of historical and diplomatic documents is due to at least two reasons: the need for the Minister and other representatives of the French monarchy had to keep well informed about the wider European policy they orchestrated, marked by the treaties Westphalia (1648) and the Pyrenees (1659). Many diplomats, knowing the bibliophile of the minister, offered him rare and manuscripts, and printed books, or whose content was related to the issues that had the charge of defending. Overall, the books were used as media of propaganda near the Minister, but the quality of the texts about the Franco-Iberian past attracted our interest of making a study of this particular corpus of the library.The objective of this project is to make a contribution to the field of the histories of book, of reading and political communication, through the study of the potential uses of the library in the reflection of the Franco-Iberian diplomacy of the period 1643 and 1653, when under the responsibility of this Gabriel Naudé, essential character to the understanding of the collection, because of his library´s conception and the importance he gave to collection of philosophical, moral, historical, political texts, and their uses in education and information of the agents of the French State.The Iberian world was considered relevant by the librarian and was mentioned in the published texts. He considered Spain a major enemy of France so we can imagine the attention gave to the collection of texts on the Spanish and Portuguese empires in the period in which the Portuguese Restoration (1640) was not recognized by Spain and other European powers. Mazarino was asked to negotiate on behalf of the new status claimed by representatives of the Bragança family. In this study, we sought to understand whether these issues have left a mark in the library and how books can contribute to a better understanding of the Franco-Iberian relations. Naudé also affirmed the importance of the collection and study of diplomatic documents from a historical point of view and considered the reign of Louis XI (1461-1483) as a model. While History research we also confer great attention the importance of the librarian gave to the historical knowledge to think the politics of his time.The research will result in a publication composed of two parts: a study of the possible political uses of the library. The second part concerns the dissemination of manuscripts and printed texts related to the Franco-Iberian culture that figured in the collection.This project is specially designed to do an analysis of Mazarino´s library and develop methods of historical research to understand how the printed and manuscript preserved in the collection may have contributed to the maturation of political ideas and Franco-Iberian diplomatic action. The research does not favor the study of diplomacy itself, nor does it suggest that the library is the main key to its understandability, but look for the understanding of the role of this extraordinary private library in informing the agents of the French monarchy of the seventeenth century. Although specific, since it focused only on the Franco-Iberian universe, the methods of this research will also contribute to the study of French foreign policy even more broad way, from the minister's library.Its development depends on access to printed books and manuscripts preserved mainly in three Parisian libraries, the National Library of France, which preserves the manuscripts that belonged to Mazarino and part of his printed collection; Sainte-Genevieve library where Naudé, under threat of dismemberment of the library during the Fronde (1648-1653), also kept part of the collection, and Mazarine Library. (AU)