The language of “the extrinsic things”. Theory and political practice in the government of the State of Milan during the transition from the 16th to the 17th century

Abstract

Since the last decades of the 16th century, the instructions for the government of Milan began to adopt new precepts around what in 1583 Scipio di Castro called “extrinsic things”. This renewal of the language towards a diplomatic dimension was induced by a political practice that considered the relevance of the good governance of relations within the context of the Spanish Monarchy. The analysis proposed in this article aims to value the state of Milan as a laboratory for observing the way in which an external sphere was identified in the development of political entities through this transfer of the vocabulary and the government practice.