ABSTRACT
In tracing the emergence of the social category of the modern public sphere, Jürgen Habermas characterized the premodern as a historical moment in which publicity was inextricably bound to the representation and endowment of status: the “aura” of authority surrounding persons in power. This “representative publicity,” in Habermas's terms, was staged in a variety of ways, from rhetorics of speech and codes of behavior, to festive and visual representations of the court. 1 The overall desired effect of these strategies was a totalizing one: the public presence of the prince was both the locus of and matrix for all authority, presented not for, but before, the people of his realm. Habermas's formulation of representative publicity prompts the themes explored in this chapter, which asks if the potential for early modern discourse and public debate can be found even in the most seemingly overt and directed manifestations of sovereign power.
