Metamorphoses of the Idea of Empire to the Renaissance

During the Renaissance, as an age of transition, the political idea of empire (a legacy of the Middle Ages) is subject to a series of evolutions leading to the modern reality of a large market, gradually coordinating national economies and their influence networks. Do these evolutions allow us to speak of an "economical version of the empire"? Can we view this process, described through the geopolitical relationships of the Renaissance, as a prefiguration of modern globalization? This paper deals with these questions from various points of view, in order to prove that the Renaissance idea of empire undergoes "metamorphosis", or evolutions, which modify its concept, regarding notably the relationship between domination and territoriality.