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This book radically revises our understanding of the construction of symbolic power in the age of absolutism by examining the fictions that emerge from visual, narrative, and ceremonial representations of (and reactions to) the 1660 marriage of Louis XIV to the Spanish infanta. Drawing on semiotics, the history of theater and spectacle, gender studies, and anthropology, the author reconsiders the nature of representation in absolutist political culture. The book is not intended as a history of the marriage. Rather, the author analyzes in detail exemplary moments or scenes from the royal wedding, in particular uncovering the dialectic at the heart of nuptial fictions. Like the kinship exchange out of which they emerge, fictions of marriage manipulate antagonistic forces in the service of promoting the political culture of absolutism. The nuptial fiction portrays a king who though central, is not yet absolute, and who depends on images and representational forms to become visible. His perceived power relies on appendages such as the queen and forms like print, fireworks, and drama. A calculus of addition, this dependence is invisible from within the models previously used to explore the representation of sovereignty, models based on rituals of substitution like the funeral rite. Though the fictions generated during Louis XIV’s marriage are not the principal ones of his rule, they do affect the portrait of the king and provide insight into the making of an image scholars too frequently take for granted. Studying nuptial fictions invites us to reexamine clichés about the representation of absolutist power, generalizations that do not fully characterize the less monumental (but equally crucial) periods of Louis XIV’s kingship.
Much of the period 1661-1815 appeared to be the age of France. France was the greatest power in Western Europe in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and Louis XIV and Napoleon seemed to dominate their periods. yet when Louis XIV died in 1715, and again after Napoleon's attempt to resume power was defeated at Waterloo a century later, France appeared as a waning power. This failure in Europe was matched on the world scale. France was overtaken by Britain in the struggle for maritime predominance, and ended the period with her empire in ruins. From Louis XIV to Napoleon is a scholarly yet accessible account which considers why France was not more successful and throws light on French history, international relations, warfare and the rise and fall of French power.
Studies the way in which status symbols operated as a key tool for defining and redefining identities, relations, and power in the hierarchical world of Louis XIV's court.
Toward the end of the fifteenth century, the Habsburg family began to rely on dynastic marriage to unite an array of territories, eventually creating an empire as had not been seen in Europe since the Romans. Other European rulers followed the Habsburgs' lead in forging ties through dynastic marriages. Because of these marriages, many more aristocrats (especially women) left their homelands to reside elsewhere. Until now, historians have viewed these unions from a primarily political viewpoint and have paid scant attention to the personal dimensions of these relocations. Separated from their family and thrust into a strange new land in which language, attire, religion, food, and cultural practices were often different, these young aristocrats were forced to conform to new customs or adapt their own customs to a new cultural setting. Early Modern Dynastic Marriages and Cultural Transfer examines these marriages as important agents of cultural transfer, emphasizing how marriages could lead to the creation of a cosmopolitan culture, common to the elites of Europe. These essays focus on the personal and domestic dimensions of early modern European court life, examining such areas as women's devotional practices, fashion, patronage, and culinary traditions.
This richly illustrated volume, the first devoted to maritime art and galley slavery in early modern France, shows how royal propagandists used the image and labor of enslaved Muslims to glorify Louis XIV. Mediterranean maritime art and the forced labor on which it depended were fundamental to the politics and propaganda of France’s King Louis XIV (r. 1643–1715). Yet most studies of French art in this period focus on Paris and Versailles, overlooking the presence or portrayal of galley slaves on the kingdom’s coasts. By examining a wide range of artistic productions—ship design, artillery sculpture, medals, paintings, and prints—Meredith Martin and Gillian Weiss uncover a vital aspect of royal representation and unsettle a standard picture of art and power in early modern France. With an abundant selection of startling images, many never before published, The Sun King at Sea emphasizes the role of esclaves turcs (enslaved Turks)—rowers who were captured or purchased from Islamic lands—in building and decorating ships and other art objects that circulated on land and by sea to glorify the Crown. Challenging the notion that human bondage vanished from continental France, this cross-disciplinary volume invites a reassessment of servitude as a visible condition, mode of representation, and symbol of sovereignty during Louis XIV’s reign.
Significant Others explores the transformative possibilities of alterity or otherness and offers concrete case studies that provide a greater understanding and nuance with regard to aspects of deviance and difference in premodern court cultures. Both public and nominally private spaces were subject to the important influence of significant others, such as women, ethno-religious minorities, and marginalized and/or difficult-to-categorize men. From their positions within and ties to court cultures, these diverse outsiders - ‘others’ - played crucial roles in maintaining a fluidity essential for the successful sustaining of territorial monarchies and polities, challenging our understanding of the more narrowly defined elite behaviours that shaped premodern dynasties, rulers, societies, and cultures of the past. By exploring a variety of case studies from history and literature, such as Moroccan Jews as dhimmis (‘protected persons’), to bastards, mistresses, and sodomites in ancien régime France, to the transformative role of magic in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, this volume makes use of empirical and contextually informed research to respond to theoretical questions posed by recent historiography. With a cross-disciplinary approach, this collection of essays will be a valuable resource for all students and scholars interested in the diverse aspects and contexts of premodern ‘others’.
How many “bodies” does a queen have? What is the significance of multiple “bodies”? How has the gendered body been constructed and perceived within the context of the European courts during the course of the past five centuries? These are some of the questions addressed in this anthology, a contribution to the ongoing debate provoked by Ernst H. Kantorowicz in his seminal work from 1957, The King’s Two Bodies. On the basis of both textual self-presentations and visual representations a gradual transformation of the queen appears: A sacred/providential figure in medieval and early modern period, an ideal bourgeois wife during the late-18th and 19th Centuries, and a star-like (re-) presentation of royalty during the past century. Twentieth-century mass media has produced the celebrity and film star queens personified by the contested and enigmatic Nefertiti of ancient Egypt, the mysterious Elizabeth (Sisi) of Austria, Grace Kelly as Queen of both Hollywood and Monaco and Romy Schneider as the invented Empress.