Contenu du sommaire

Nicolas of Frankfurt, a German in Venice in 1473-1524. Nicolas of Frankfurt (dead in 1524) is a German printer and publisher, who began his activity in Venice in 1473, shortly after the first book was printed in the city in 1469 by John of Spire. By analysing his life and career in Venice, we try to have a better understanding of the printing industry between the end of the 15th century and the beginning of the 16th century. Thanks to the great variety of sources – contracts, wills, judicial sources, epigraphy... –, we also aim to understand how foreign craftsmen were able to become integrate into the Venetian society. As a German printer and publisher, Nicolas of Frankfurt is not a major figure of history of printing. But he joined some lucrative and lasting associations within the German community in Venice and with other printers. Testimonies of his life in Venice also show that he tried to become integrated by other means and beyond the printing community. He participated to numerous confraternities or scuole, which is an important socialisation tool in the Venetian society. He also married the daughter of a glassblower from Murano and his daughter married a Venetian spice merchant. Finally, he made some investments in Venice real estate and in the Venetian Terra ferma. His choices and alliances reveal some of the mechanisms of integration for a foreign craftsman in Venice, despite the sometimes ambiguous attitude of Venetian authorities. With this example, we try to show that foreign craftsmen, non-Italian as well as non-Venetian Italians, had tools to build themselves a stable socio-economical situation in the city, by using resources from their national community and by becoming an actor of the Venetian social life.

The “Maimbourg case” or the possibility of Jesuit Gallicanism in 17th century France`/titrebThis paper is a case study in the nature and very possibility of Jesuit Gallicanism in 17th century France. By reassessing the case of the historian Louis Maimbourg, one maybe too easily dismissed by contemporary Jesuit historians, it argues that, under Louis XIV, Gallicanism may have had a much stronger hold on the Society of Jesus in France than has been previously thought. In the 1670s, Louis Maimbourg's career as a Jesuit writer took a new turn as he became a forefront figure in historical literature. His success attracted the attention of the Court, and he soon became a key-writer in the production of an official apologetics of Louis XIV's ecclesiastical policies in the conflict with Innocent XI and his curia over the Ius Regaliae of the kings of France. Nonetheless, throughout his literary career, Maimbourg seems to have stuck to the same consistent line of argument regarding the relationship between Church and State. Even before his entering the service of royal propaganda, Maimbourg advocated some sort of religious commitment to politics. His radical stances in favour of subservience to the Church and to the Crown find their origin in a specifically Jesuit culture of obedience. It can even be suggested that Maimbourg claims the very technologies of Jesuit obedience in favour of both Church and State. Yet during the conflict over the Régale, the compatibility between obediences to both institutions is tested and Maimbourg, along others, tends to prioritize the political over the ecclesiastical and to mobilize his culture of radical obedience in favour of his commitment to the public defence of the monarchy. In this regard, he is no exception. Nonetheless, as a public example of such a type of Jesuit commitment, Maimbourg was targeted by Innocent XI's curia and dismissed from the Society of Jesus. The study of this dismissal shows that while other Jesuits may not have faced such radically incompatible contradictions, most were confronted with the tensions of the same type of religious double-bind. The superiors who handled his case (whether in France or in Rome) did so from within the same linguistic framework. Therefore, it is not so much the exact doctrinal content of Maimbourg's Gallicanism which is relevant for the understanding of Jesuit commitment to political obedience, but rather the common cultural mechanisms by which French Jesuits shared into the religious sentiment that was Gallicanism and into its publicization.

The Heures perdues of Pierre Barthès, a private chronic in 18th Century Toulouse. This article analyses the life of Pierre Barthès, « maître écrivain » in Toulouse, who kept a diary recounting elements of his life and of public events occurred in Toulouse between 1737 and 1781. Although the historians of Toulousian social life often use this text as a primary source, his author is still largely unknown, as well as the purpose and the functions of his diary. However, to read this source properly, it is necessary to analyse the functions and the uses of this private chronic, and to contextualise it through his author's social and familiar trajectory. In fact, this article proposes to understand the chronic by the chronicler.

This article reconstructs the relationship between television and politics in Italy from the beginning of broadcasting (January 1954) to the arrival of Silvio Berlusconi on the Italian political scene and his first electoral victory in 1994. Through a careful study of the compared dimension the author shows how Italy seemed to move away from the main Western democracies in the context of an increasing mediatisation of the public scene. Even though the development of media, and particularly of television, was comparable to other European countries and, basically, similar to France, the image of politician in Italy has been hidden for a long time behind the slogans and symbols of the parties that remained the undisputed rulers of the public and electoral scene in the 60's and 70's. However, a meaningful evolution – analysed by the author through the transformations of media as well as the disruption of the institutional and partisan context – occurred from the 80's. The article shows the new and radical hallmark of this evolution which allowed Italy not only to make up lost time in respect to the other European countries, but also to rapidly assert itself as pioneer in the field of political mediatization and personalization. In 1994, the “descent into the political arena” and electoral victory of Silvio Berlusconi – owner of a media empire who used television as a trampoline to launch himself into the national political competition and uncontested leader of a personal and media-centred party such as Forza Italia – represent the synthesis and peak of a previously unseen process of symbiosis between politics and television that no other country experienced in such an intensive way.

French legitimism, a major politic culture of French 19th century, had a quite ambiguous destiny in the historiography since a century and a half. For a long time, it remained the prerogative of counter-revolutionary historians who pretended to use their works as a defence of their ideology. Nowadays, this part of historiography still exists, although less in France than in other countries like Spain or Italy. The history of legitimism experienced a double revival, in the 1950s with the first political studies on this trend, leaded by René Rémond or Jacques Godechot, and in the 1970s with the great local studies on social history. Most of the areas where the legitimism had been strong were studied by historians, but also ethnologists or anthropologists. Anglo-Saxons researchers had an important part in this work and were the first to show that French legitimism's program was not a mere back to the past. In the 1980s, the interest in legitimism arouse as a consequence of the sharp debates about French Revolution which coincided with the commemoration of the bicentenary and the Revolution in 1989. New studies emerged, taking a fresh look at the links between legitimism and catholicism or between legitimism, nationalism and even fascism by focusing on the end of the movement. Nowadays, the historiography remains incomplete on whole sectors of the evolution of this movement, especially during French Second Republic and Second Empire. Even about the 1870s, a quite well-known period thanks to the works of counter-revolutionary researchers, we lack of a social and political history which would take into account the « legitimist people ».However, at the same time, the historiography of French legitimism is a leader in methodological renewals and provides excellent studies about the cultural and religious history of this movement. The renewal of studies about Bourbon Restoration in France, even if it does not exactly deal with legitimism – which appears in 1830 – gave new keys to understand the supporters of the union of Altar and Throne. Finally, their links with the other european legitimist parties and the existence of a counter-revolutionary internationalism constitute one of the most promising ways of actual research about this quite forgotten movement.