Chapter Two. The Scholar-Diplomat

This chapter examines how Claude de Seyssel presented himself as both a humanist scholar and a noble counselor-diplomat, and argues that a study of his diplomatic language indicates a deliberate effort on his part to keep these identities distinct. It also argues that Seyssel’s conception of his identity as a noble and his function as a diplomat and military advisor led him to avoid a humanist persona on many occasions. The chapter also examines how the identities of ‘scholar’ and ‘diplomat’ interrelated within the context of the Renaissance state, and what that reveals about the nature of civic identity in the years before the rise of the nation-state. It looks at the language of a scholar-diplomat in his various functions to elucidate attitudes of the author to his social context, and his professional identity in relation to his audience.Keywords: civic identity; Claude de Seyssel; Renaissance scholar-diplomat; Seyssel’s language