The theatre metaphor in renaissance legal thought: law, power , and space

The metaphor of theatrum mundi occupied a central place in early modern culture, both in Western literature and in legal thought, providing a powerful way of imagining law as at once spectacle and structure. The aim of this study is to reconsider this theatrical paradigm as an epistemic framework for organizing and visualizing legal knowledge, revealing how normativity itself became spatialized and inscribed in the political imagination of Renaissance jurisprudence. Through a close reading of key figures such as Giulio Camillo, Jean Bodin, and Abraham Ortelius, this article demonstrates how theatrical, visual, and cartographic devices shaped the emergence of new legal methodologies and representational practices. The theatrum is approached here as a cognitive and comparative medium, capable of synthesizing diverse domains of knowledge and mapping the complex relations between law, power, and space. In doing so, the article uncovers the deep entanglement between theatricality and the epistemological foundations of modern legal culture. A forthcoming piece extends this investigation into the Baroque period, tracing the evolving relationship between theatrical imagery and legal-political thought in seventeenth century Europe.