At the Roots of the History of Diplomacy. Writing, Preserving, and Publishing a Peace Treaty (1454/5-1735)

This chapter deals with the complex nature of medieval treaties and their preservation, definition, and transmission by briefly retracing the story of a highly symbolic treaty, the Peace of Lodi (and the following Italic League) stipulated among the main Italian powers in 1454/5, and by expanding on its inclusion into the main early modern editions of peace treaties. The collections published in Europe between the 17th and 18th centuries, far from simply fine-tuning a model for transmitting documentary testimonies of past political events or offering a useful instrument for daily politics, defined an increasingly specific idea of diplomacy, one based on formal and horizontal agreements between sovereign and territorially bounded states, progressively concealing other ways, other actors, other records.