La catastrophe comme objet de gouvernement : le développement de la notion de « calamité publique » dans la pensée politique en France et en Italie (XVe-XVIe siècle)

Abstract

In regard to its lengthy perception of natural disasters, Western society witnessed a major shift between the end of the 15th century and the end of the 16th century. The traditional supernatural sign-focused medieval moral economy gave way to a more modern one which, without dispensing with the issue of wonders of nature, began to focus its attention on the dramatic and humanitarian dimension of disasters. This transition led to the figure of the victim becoming a key element around which the question of the meaning of the catastrophe was built. The field of governmentality accompanied this ethical evolution and also underwent a transformation: the 16th century witnessed the rise of compassionate policies as we understand them today. Based on the Italian and French contexts, this article will first describe the new methods of institutionalising charity that were put in place in times of disaster during the Renaissance. We will then see how this evolution of the art of governing was accompanied, in the field of political philosophy, by an effort to legitimise the act of helping. Finally, we describe how this theoretical construction has paved the way to the progressive internalisation of a new type of social configuration calling for action: the “public calamity”.

Keywords

• disaster
• compassionate policy
• public calamity
• Renaissance
• victim