Caroline Stobbe, M.A.

Caroline Stobbe studied primary and secondary school teaching at Leuphana University in Lüneburg and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 2018. Since 2018/19, she has been studying art history at the University of Hamburg, working as a student assistant at the Hamburger Kunsthalle, for Prof. Dr. Margit Kern, and in the DFG-Centre for Advanced Studies Imaginaria of Force. From 2019 to 2023, she was also a student board member of the Geschwister Dr. Meyer Foundation. Caroline Stobbe completed her Bachelor of Arts with a thesis on Titian's portrait of Doge Andrea Gritti, which was awarded the Friends and Supporters of the Art History Department's sponsorship prize in 2022. During her subsequent master's studies at the University of Hamburg, she focused on early modern image politics, iconographies of power, and cultural transfer processes in the Mediterranean region. A lecture at the Centro Tedesco di Studi Veneziani in Venice on antemurale concepts in Venetian art and politics in the 16th and 17th centuries in 2023 ultimately led to her Master's thesis on the forces and mechanics in Martino Rota's allegories of the Battle of Lepanto (1571). Caroline Stobbe completed her master's degree in January 2026 and has been working as a research assistant at the DFG-Centre for Advanced Studies Imaginaria of Force since February 2026.

2026

„A European Bulwark? The Myth of antemurale in 16th and 17th Century Venetian Art“, in: Studiolo #21 [Frühjahr 2026]

2022

„Die TO-Karte des Isidor von Sevilla“, in: Das Ganze der Natur. Kräfte, Ordnungen, Grenzen, Exhibition brochure accompanying the exhibition of the same name at Museum der Natur Hamburg des Leibnitz-Instituts zur Analyse des Biodiversitätswandels (30.11.2022–27.08.2023), pp. 37–40. [unpub.]

 „Olaus Magnus: Carta Marina“, in: Das Ganze der Natur. Kräfte, Ordnungen, Grenzen, Exhibition brochure accompanying the exhibition of the same name at Museum der Natur Hamburg des Leibnitz-Instituts zur Analyse des Biodiversitätswandels (30.11.2022–27.08.2023), pp. 46–51. [unpub.]

• „Ziehen, Hebeln, Drehen: Kräfte und Mechaniken in Martino Rotas Allegorien zur Seeschlacht von Lepanto (1571)“, Early-Career-Conference Violence, Chaos, Destruction? Depictions of War in the Early Modern Period, Warburg Haus Hamburg, 12.12.2025.
• „Von Bellini zu Tizian: Zur Neuinterpretation des venezianischen Dogenporträts im 16. Jahrhundert“, Universität Hamburg, 27.10.2025
• „antemurale-Konzeptionen in Bild und Politik in Venedig im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert“, Studienkurs Mediterrane Kriegskulturen der Vormoderne, Deutschen Studienzentrum Venedig (DSZV), 07.10.2023.
• „Das venezianische Dogenporträt im Wandel: „Andrea Gritti“ von Tizian (1546–1550)“, Förderpreisverleihung, Warburg Haus Hamburg, 01.12.2022.

Forces and Mechanics in Early Modern Political Allegory

Machines and mechanics were ubiquitous phenomena in early modern Europe and were frequently explored through art. To view them solely as evidence of the technological developments of the time would be, however, an oversimplification. On the contrary, representations of technology served a variety of functions and were imbued with multiple layers of meaning that go beyond that of a mere workshop drawing.

On a didactical level, they served to visualize abstract concepts and processes of salvation history. Phenomena such as the mystic mill or wine press conveyed a mechanical, machine-like logic of salvation; the representation of familiar, everyday machinery made these complex processes of transubstantiation more accessible. At the same time, they gave artists the opportunity to depict (mechanical) sequences of movement on a sheet of paper or an altarpiece, thereby not only visualizing processes but also imbuing them with narrative meaning. Leonardo’s drawings show that the artist was not only concerned with the depiction of mechanical components; rather, these objects carried an inherent and clear narrative potential. Beyond this explanatory function, fantastical depictions of machines also possessed an inherent element of entertainment, for example within the context of an early modern theatrum machinarum. Puzzling over the design and marveling at the artist’s inventiveness engaged the viewers. The machineries became aesthetic entities, cultural symbols whose meanings unfolded through the interplay of form, function, and fiction. They were interactive, mentally animated cognitive devices in which the audience participated by imaginatively setting the gears in motion, thereby ‘producing’ the image’s meaning. Ultimately, depictions of machines in the early modern period also took on an increasingly symbolic significance. In emblems, they came to symbolize virtues such as reliability, steadfastness, intelligence and statesmanship – indeed, they even became a microcosm of social order, for example, in relation to the phenomenon of the ‘turning sovereign’.

This research project aims to examine these diverse layers of meaning in artistically depicted forces and mechanics, focusing specifically on their explanatory potential within the context of political allegories. Following in from Martino Rota’s allegories of the Battle of Lepanto (1571), in which mechanical constructions and force dynamics carry an integral part of the political message, the project seeks to establish a corpus of mechanized political allegories across Europe. Rota’s prints present the historical event as part of an inevitable, quasi-physical principle of cause and effect, thus providing the ideal starting point for exploring this subject. For the 16th and 17th centuries – a period in which science, technology and art were virtually inseparable – the focus is primarily on the question of what supposedly technical representations (and the visual pseudo-objectivity they convey) achieve within the framework of an ongoing process of political myth-making.