Images of Empire

In this chapter, the author talks about Francis I, and in doing so demonstrates that, immersed as he was in the visual and textual symbols the humanists around him marshalled in support of his reign, maps were at once an assertion of, and confirmation of, his rightful equality with, or even precedence over, his imperial rival, Charles V, and his imperial ally, the Turkish sultan. The chapter shows that Francis I, like other early modern rulers, competed for the service of cartographers, and treated cartographic knowledge as a potent source of royal propaganda and as a means to assert effective possession over territories. Although rulers, and especially the Portuguese and Spanish, often attempted to suppress maps that might aid foreign interlopers in reaching their new overseas trade routes and colonies, at other times maps were proudly displayed as tangible indicators of the extent of the power of the possessor. Keywords: cartographers; Charles V; Francis I; humanists; Spanish; Turkish sultan

Archaeology · Art · Art history · Cartography · Computer graphics (images) · Empire · Geography · Artificial Intelligence · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Computer Science · Geology · Historical Influence and Diplomacy · Historical Studies on Spain · History