The Iconic Essence of Sovereignty

This essay aims to investigate the relation between the dawn of the National State in the early Renaissance and the concepts of crisis/apocalypse on one side and visible power on the other. The hypothesis is that without representation there is no State at all. Furthermore we will suggest that the role of the visibility of the state is related to its capability to be the “cement of society”, that is to say to face the risk of the anomy. This study is based on the research of one of the most important Italian philosophers, Massimo Cacciari and on the work of the well-known German historian Ernst Hartvig Kantorowicz, and in particular of his masterpiece, The King’s Two Bodies.