Imagines imperii. Die Wahrnehmung des Reiches und der Deutschen durch die römische Kurie im Reformationsjahrhundert (1523-1585)

• Applicant: Privatdozent Dr. Guido Braun
• Subject Area: Early Modern History
• Term: from 2014 to 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 264000054

In view of numerous information, streaming together to Rome, we should survey, if in fact the popes have been the most well-informed monarchs in Europe, as we would like to assume". A few years ago, this desideratum was expressed by the internationally well-respected historian Wolfgang Reinhard. Whether Rome without any doubt implied to be a cross-point of information, at least for the Roman Catholic community, recent researches are shading a far too positive image. How could it be more obvious - disregarded from the ¿New World", that was discovered in the beginning of the modern times in the course of the European expansion - to face up the drafted problem as in the homeland of Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation, which was subject to numerous profound modifications in the 16'^ century (ecclesiastic-religious, social, and cultural as well as political)? The present study attempts to bring some light into the discussion. It has set itself the target to offer an analysis about the roman-curial perception of the empire and the German population in a context of separation of the occidental Christianitas. Such a systematic research has not been conducted up to now; anyway, the Roman-German relationship of the 16th century was largely unattended in German researches of Early Modern History since the 1960s. Beside the classic domains as the relationship between papacy and empire the present monograph is dedicated to the founding of a historic-anthropological view of living and experience environments of nuncios in Germany in the century of Protestant Reformation, for example in regard to their perception of space and time, disease and death, gender ratio as well as different confessional experiences. Furthermore the analysis extends to the linguistic and cultural translation performances that Rome had to effect in touch with the German population. In this context, in addition to aspects of language habits and fluency, also problems of linguistic awareness are examined. By use of political methods and discourse analysis, the present study follows a reconstruction of mindset and self-image at curial office-holders as well as processes of generating knowledge. In a double perspectivation this research study considers additionally processes of narrative history construction at the Roman Curia. The Roman curial perception of the empire and the German population crystallises as unexpectedly complex and diverse. In several aspects, tangible conceptions in Rome still refer - also in the confessional period - to a European World of discourse.

• DFG Programme: Publication Grants