Reichsitalien digital. Exploring and Visualising Fluid Spaces of Power.

• Applicant: Dr. Sven Dittmar
• Subject Area: Early Modern History
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 577018751

The project ‘Reichsitalien digital. Exploring and Visualising Fluid Spaces of Power’ surveys the political configuration of Northern Italy in the early modern period using point-based interactive web visualisations as methodologically innovative tools for analysis and representation. The aim is not to record and visualise legal norms, but rather to capture practices of rulership across a broad temporal and geographical spectrum and visualizing them to identify differentiated spheres of rule, influence and action. The project will develop a digital visualisation of practices of rule in early modern Reichsitalien based on archival records from the Imperial Court Council in Vienna and the Plenipotentiary Council in Milan. The proposed project will not only contribute to research on Reichsitalien and, ultimately, on the constitution of the entire Holy Roman Empire, it will also break new methodological ground by rendering spaces of power legible as multipolar networks of relationships based on location-specific rights, claims and affiliations. Cartographic visualisation is innovatively used as a heuristic approach, analytical instrument and independent methodological tool for generating insights. The fluidity of imperial affiliations in Reichsitalien makes it particularly well suited for the development of maps that represent space as a social construct. This is because the Holy Roman Empire primarily followed the logic of a polity structured around personal and legal affiliations, which was never completely replaced by a purely territorial conception of rule. For the first time, this insight serves as the focus of a research and visualisation project. While the project will contribute to historically critical spatial reflections in German-Italian discourses, its broader significance lies in offering a new approach to researching and representing pre-modern configurations of rule applicable beyond the context of the Holy Roman Empire. The project’s innovative character stems from the combination of its content and methodological orientation. It provides foundational research on the political configuration of Reichsitalien. Methodologically, it further develops the possibilities of interactive web cartography for exploring space as a social and legal construct. The project’s close interlinking of content and methodology promises substantial gains in both knowledge about Reichsitalien and innovations in how cartographic visualisations can serve as a heuristic tool in historical research.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants