Potestas Elementorum. L’eau, le feu et le pouvoir en Europe. Water, fire and power in Europe. (ca. 1400 - ca. 1800)

In Early Modern Europe, water and fire were at the heart of written and illustrated representations produced by the wielders of many kinds of power who strove to make their strength known. While the political uses of these diametrically opposed elements have already been examined from several angles individually, no large-scale study has yet been dedicated to understanding their articulation. To fill this gap, reflections from the fields of history, art history and literary history are combined in this book to explore the contexts, the modalities and the perceptions of the simultaneous presence of these two elements in the staging of political power from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. As a result of this pluridisciplinary approach, the barriers to the study of political representations are broken down and the subject is placed at the crossroads of histories – those of peace and of war, of festivities and of ceremonies, of culture and of communication – with an opening toward environmental humanities.