Daniel Menager. Diplomatie et theologie a la Renaissance.

(Perspectives litteraires.) Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2001. 232 pp. 24 [euro]. ISBN: 21-30-50975-4.

This is a very wide-ranging and interesting book. Daniel Menager takes as his point of departure Tasso's dialogue, "II Messagiero," in which the poet compares angels and ambassadors, since both are go-betweens. With impressive erudition and insight, Menager traces the comparison through European culture (principally in France and Italy) from the late fifteenth to the early seventeenth centuries. He offers concise accounts of the history of the representation of angels, and of the development of Renaissance discourses on diplomacy, drawing parallels and contrasts when necessary (thus, for example, ambassadors raise questions about representation, whereas angels, who cannot possibly "resemble" their divine sender, do not). The book shows how changing depictions of the two figures touch on questions of political virtue, rhetorical performance, and self-presentation.

The argument is organized thematically, for the most part, with different chapters devoted to such questions as mediation, communication, fidelity, and so on. Menager's method is to trace a theme through a wide range of theoretical, visual, and literary texts, pausing occasionally on a specific work for a close reading. The material on angels ranges from Aquinas' Summa, to various Renaissance "Annunciations" (Piero della Francesca, Tintoretto), to Berulle. Menager shows that the focus of the drama of annunciation changes as one moves through the Renaissance, with the later paintings eliminating the figure of God and limiting the figures in the scene to Mary and Gabriel. This new emphasis on the instant of the announcement, along with a new sense of mobility ascribed to the angel, suggests that the scene is asking us to think about the dynamics of communication.

Menager's treatment of diplomacy considers the major diplomatic theorists of the period (Vera, Gentili, Barbaro), political theorists (Machiavelli, Bodin, Lipsius), and historians (Commynes, Guicciardini). Building on some of the insights of Garrett Mattingly's book, Renaissance Diplomacy, he argues that the theory of diplomacy shifts in the sixteenth century from an emphasis on the ambassador as orator to a concern with the problem of mediation. There are fascinating juxtapositions of literary and philosophical texts with pictorial representations of diplomacy, specifically, those by Carpaccio and Holbein. One of his most detailed analyses (and one of the high points of the book), involves a reading of Holbein's "Ambassadors" which builds (self-consciously) on Hervey's century-old study of the iconography of the painting and effectively dismantles much of the influential "anamorphic" reading done by Baltrusaitis. Menager shows how the iconography of the painting suggests that it is a meditation on the tension between theology and diplomacy--and an acknowledgment of the failure of diplomatic initiative in the face of power politics.

The centerpiece of the book, more or less, is the chapter entitled "Portrait de l'ambassadeur," which analyzes representations of the ideal diplomat. Menager focuses on Machiavelli, Guillaume Bude, and Montaigne, showing how their depictions of their own activities echo much of the theoretical writing about diplomacy that was current. While I found the reading of Montaigne a bit predictable (though never a professional diplomat, he turns out to be the only figure who actually conforms to the ideals of the age), the reading of Machiavelli was beautifully nuanced and interesting. With wonderful insight Menager shows the great philosopher struggling, in the heat of negotiation, to bring his own diplomatic work into phase with the kind of theorizing he does so well.

The sophistication and power of Menager's reading of Machiavelli suggest both the strengths and the limitations of this book. Despite its appearance in a series entitled "Perspectives litteraires," the book is not, in fact, a book of literary criticism. It offers little sustained literary analysis. There is a slightly fragmentary dimension to the argument at times--though this is probably inevitable, given the range and ambition of the project. Slightly more frustrating was the sense that at certain moments Menager could have put a bit more pressure on some of the texts he discusses. If annunciations and negotiations are about communication and representation, the problems raised by those two activities affect, not only the arguments of the various authors studied here, but the rhetoric and authority of their own texts--an aspect that deserves more attention than it gets. Similarly, there is room for more reflection on the forces underpinning some of the shifts in representation that Menager treats. The book has a tendency to insert events and innovations into larger narratives that are more or less taken for granted. Thus, for example, it often describes cultural shifts in purely stylistic terms, deploying phrases like "la pensee baroque" (56) as if they were objective phenomena, instead of literary-historical conventions. Still, these shortcomings are small compared to the many strengths of this learned and rich meditation on an important aspect of early modern European culture.

TIMOTHY HAMPTON

University of California, Berkeley