Renaissance Pamphlets

In my first book I studied the European dimension of the French Wars of Religion, and their perception in
South-West Germany and Italy in comparison, testing a complex approach of ‘entangled history’ or ‘Histoire
croisée’. While the historiography of the French (as well as other European) wars of religion has nearly always
concentrated on the national perspective, my book takes into account for the first time the strong
interdependency of French events and thoughts with those of neighboring territories in Italy and Germany,
specially Savoy, Alsace and the Palatinate. The work relies on a huge amount of archival and early printed
sources which had never been touched on. I show the military involvement of France’s European neighbors, the
Italian perception which was impregnated with Machiavellism and the German, more theologico-political,
sometimes even apocalyptic vision of the wars. The title words ‘Discorso and Lex Dei’ refer to this: ‘Discorso’
is the name given to early modern political advice and its method; ‘Lex Dei’ refers to the norm aimed at by
political theologians. Like modern and contemporary large wars, the early modern wars of religion were an
international phenomenon and not just situated in a national context. I study military and diplomatic
involvement as well as the perception in early modern media (pamphlets, written newspapers) and I study the
impact on state-building in these areas. To my knowledge, at least since World War II there has been no book
written about the French wars of religion which relies on a comparable amount of unknown European archival
and printed sources.

This study identifies and explores consistencies and inconsistencies in the publishing and authorial strategies used in two seventeenth-century printed "relaciones de sucesos"; one published in Madrid in 1637, by Ana Caro de Mallén, and one published in Mexico in 1640, by María de Estrada Medinilla.