CENTRES AND CENTRALITIES
How did the political centrality of the Roman Empire operate? Where did Emperors have their official residences? Where did the Senate convene? Where were the capitals of the Empire? How did New Rome last more than old Rome as a capital city?
This article stems from The Centre and the Name, readings in Beirut’s toponymy, a thesis defended at the Sorbonne in May 2018. Hannah Arendt is not very present in studies and research related to geography....
A great leap towards reconciliation is made under the pontificate of Pope Francis: among Emperors, Popes, Roman nobles, and great saints, stands a small but central Piazza Martin Lutero: the German theologian of the Reformation is present now among them. He has the “right to exist” on the map. The Catholic Church is, finally, saying: “I hear what you say”, and gives him the right place to be present in her centre.
“Mille viae ducunt homines per saecula Romam” “Ubi Caesar, ibi Roma” (Old Roman proverbs) All roads lead to Rome, to the centre, to the political centre. This Roman principle is well known and today...
“Cum potestas in populo auctoritas in senatu sit” “Le pouvoir réside dans le peuple mais l’autorité siège au Sénat” (Cicero) Arendt, H. 1968. Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought. Penguin Books. Qu’est-ce que l’autorité? Dans...
We said that the “centre of the world” is a notion which always stems from social construction, from human perception and not from a physical reality. In this regard we do know, today, that Jerusalem is not a physical centre of our Planet; unless we followed the idea that all points of the Planet are its centre: so Jerusalem would be one out of an infinity.
Centrality can tell about itself right from the centre ‘where power dwells,’ even if its narrative is usually charged with ideology: discourse analysis of the centre can be useful when done in critical préjugés-free ways.
But how periphery, borders, frontiers, “outsiders”, “outskirts”, limits, limitates can tell about the centre and about power dwelling in this centre? How can they tell its development, apogee, decadence, decline and even collapse? We can see the example of the Roman Empire.
“Anybody can be Pope; the proof of this is that I have become one.” (Pope John XXIII) A rare event happened last Sunday, Urbi et Orbi: Pope Francis, in presence of Pope Emeritus Benedict...
“And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:” (Revelation 12:1) We have already...
Pope Francis, one would say, is fond of the geographical/geometrical word “centrality.” He is the Pontifex Maximus, the centre of the Roman Curia, by definition the central government of the Church, thus he is...
Calenda – Géographie
