Le jeu des échelles. Le pouvoir et son inscription spatiale dans les cartographies et les descriptions du Saint-Empire et de ses territoires au XVIe siècle

In the 16th century, the Holy Roman Empire had a complex political structure. The main features of this structure were the several levels of the political representation and the multiplicity of States under the imperial authority. The study of the maps and of the geographical descriptions of the German era shows that different interpretations of the sovereignty coexisted in the Empire and its territories. Contrary to the territorial power, the imperial power was not represented as an authority situated on a definite space, but as a legal and institutional entity. Its main function was to assume the political order and the unity of the Empire