Ikonographie des Staates: Der Leviathan und seine neuesten Folgen

Abstract

The famous engraving of the Leviathan was meant to visualize and to back Hobbes’ representations. Interested not only in these representations as such but also in the history of their reception and interpretation in the past as well as in the present, the author traces the line up to our current days. He shows that even the dome of the Reichstag is akin to the Hobbesian Leviathan, though expanded and enriched by (sensational) democratic elements: it is the people who visibly occupies the brains (the head) of the Sovereign.