House Left, House Right: A Florentine Account of Marie de Medici's 1615 Ballet de Madame

Abstract

One of the costliest ephemeral diversions of the French court, court ballet provoked public curiosity across Europe. The publication of lyrics, plot summaries and engravings derived from the court ballet enabled aspects of these spectacles to be appreciated abroad. Serving the same purpose but much rarer are extensive eyewitness accounts. One such account, provided by an agent of the Medici court who attended the lavishly produced Ballet de Madame in Paris, 1615, records the author's own reaction to this multi-sensory experience, the behavior of the other spectators (particularly the foreign ambassadors), and the events that occurred in the vicinity of the ballet. In doing so, it reveals as much about the marvels of the ballet as it does about the political preoccupations of Marie de Medici and her contemporaries.

Notes

1 This manuscript report of the Ballet de Madame is found in Archivio di Stato di Firenze [hereafter ASF], Carte Strozziane, prima serie, 55, fols. 36r-42v. Although never transcribed, it is referred to in Jean-François Dubost, Marie de Médicis. La reine dévoilée (Paris, 2009), p. 414. A handful of other contemporary accounts — but none with the focus on the spectators provided by the Florentine report — are analysed in Margaret McGowan, L'Art du ballet de cour en France, 1581–1643 (Paris, 1978), pp. 94–5, including a letter by contributing poet François de Malherbe dated 23 March 1615 (Malherbe, Lettres, vol. iii, pp. 488–9, cited in McGowan, L'Art du ballet, p. 95); the response of a spectator noted in the libretto (although this ought to be suspected of being a fabrication) which was published as Description du Ballet de Madame, soeur aisnée du Roy (Lyon, 1615, Bibliothèque Nationale de France [hereafter BNF], Yf.973; compare with a variant at the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, RA 3.60); the very extensive allegorical key to the ballet published just afterwards by Elie Garel, Les Oracles françois, ou explication allégorique du Balet de Madame, soeur aisnée du Roy (Paris 1615, Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, Paris, BL 14.698); a few related notes in the journal of a member of the court, the Maréchal de Bassompierre (Edouard de Chanterac [ed], Journal de ma vie [4 vols., Paris, 1870–77], vol. ii, pp. 1–4); and strong praise — as one would expect from the court's official news source — in the Mercure François, 4 (1615–1617), pp. 9ff. A first-hand description of the ballet that has been translated into English is in William Howarth, French Theatre in the Neo-Classical Era, 1550–1789 (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 95–9, but while Howarth's account lavishes great detail on the machines used in the performance, it largely neglects the behaviour of the audience.

2 Two other examples of this type of account have recently published: Philippe Canguilhem, ‘Catherine de’ Médicis, la musique, l'Italie’, in Sabine Frommel and Gerhard Wolf (eds), Il Mecenatismo di Caterina de’ Medici. Poesia, feste, musica, pittura, scultura, architettura (Venice, 2008), pp. 135–48; Melinda Gough, ‘Maria de Medici's 1605 Ballet de la reine. New Evidence and Analysis’, Early Theatre, 15, no. 1 (2012), pp. 109–44.

3 See Sharon Kettering, ‘Favour and Patronage: Dances in the Court Ballets of Early Seventeenth-Century France’, Canadian Journal of History, 43, no. 3 (2008), pp. 392–415, at p. 392.

4 For a general introduction, see Marie-Françoise Christout, ‘The Court Ballet in France, 1615–1641’, Dance Perspectives, 20 (1964), pp. 5–37; ibid., Le Ballet de cour au XVIIe siècle. The Ballet de Cour in the 17^th Century (Geneva, 1987); Margaret McGowan, Dance in the Renaissance, European Fashion, French Obsession (New Haven and London, 2008). For a theoretical overview from the period, see Nicolas de Saint-Hubert, La Manière de composer et faire réussir les ballets (1641), edited by Marie-Françoise Christout (Geneva, 1993), especially p. 6.

5 Christout, Le Ballet de cour, p. 8. Christout notes the influence of Italian dance styles in French ballets from the second half of the sixteenth century thanks to dance masters Pompeo Diabono, Virgilio Bracesco, Fabrizio Caroso and Cesare Negri. See also Christout in Saint-Hubert, La Manière de composer et faire réussir les ballets, p. 7; Marie-Claude Canova-Green and Francesca Chiarelli (eds), The Influence of Italian Entertainments (Lewiston, 2000); James R. Mulryne, Italian Renaissance Festivals and Their European Influence (Lampeter, 1992).

6 On the political nature of the court ballet, see Mark Franko, ‘Dance and the Political: States of Exception’, Dance Research Journal, 38, nos 1–2 (2006), pp. 3–18. On the relationship between court ballet and the cult of kingship, McGowan, L'Art du ballet, pp. 174–7.

7 For the participation of French kings up through Henry IV in ballet de cour, see McGowan, Dance in the Renaissance, pp. 127–78; Louis XIV's participation in ballet de cour is treated in depth in Sarah R. Cohen, Art, Dance, and the Body in French Culture of the Ancien Régime (Cambridge, 2000). On the distribution of gendered parts in ballets, see Kettering, ‘Favour and Patronage’; also, on the topic of gender and ballet de cour with specific regard to Louis XIII, see Mark Franko, ‘Fragments of the Sovereign as Hermaphrodite: Time, History, and the Exception in Le Ballet de Madame’, Dance Research: The Journal of the Society for Dance Research, 25, no. 2 (2007), pp. 119–133.

8 On the dance of the spheres and similar allegorical (and to some degree magical) performances, see M. L. Lobato and B. J. García García, La fiesta cortesana en la época de los Austrias (Valladolid, 2003), p. 7; Cohen, Art, Dance, and the Body, pp. 15–16, 23–8; Christout, Le Ballet de cour, pp. 8–9; and McGowan, L'Art du ballet, pp. 17–18. According to Thoinot Arbeau's Orchésographie, la manière de se bien comporter au bal (1588) the dancer replicated the harmonious celestial movements of the planets, whereas Père Marin Mersenne suggested in his Harmonie Universelle (1636) that the rhythm of the dancer could actually propagate harmony and peace in the world.

9 See Margaret McGowan (ed.), Dynastic Marriages 1612/1615. A Celebration of the Habsburg and Bourbon Unions (Farnham, 2013); Dubost, Marie de Médicis, pp. 395–400.

10 When female royalty danced, it was in their own ballets. On this point and on French women's participation in court ballet in general, see Kettering, ‘Favour and Patronage’, pp. 405–8, 415. On Elisabeth's earlier performance in a 1613 ballet, see McGowan, ‘Epilogue’, p. 246.

11 This role is labelled hermaphroditic and given political significance in Franko, ‘Fragments of the Sovereign as Hermaphrodite’, pp. 119–133. Throughout his reign, Louis XIII performed supporting roles on stage. In the 1621 Ballet d'Apollon, the King cast the Duc de Luynes, a particular favourite, as the sun god, while he contented himself with the role of the chief blacksmith. For more on the manifold roles interpreted by Louis XIII, see Julia Prest, ‘The Politics of Ballet at the Court of Louis XIV’, in Jennifer Nevile (ed.), Dance, Spectacle and the Body Politick, 1250–1750 (Bloomington, 2008), pp. 229–40.

12 Mamone's full passage on the blending of the identities of mother and daughter follows: ‘Comunque, con una cura ben maggiore di quella dedicata all'organizzazione degli Stati Generali, la regina provvederà, sullo spirare dell'anno, ad organizzare lo spettacolo d'addio della seconda figlia: Il Ballet de Madame o, con la speranza che in una sorte di dissolvanza all'immagine della figlia si sovrapponga quella della madre, il Ballet de Minerve. La personificazione di Minerva aveva abitato l'edificio encomiastico di Maria fin dai lontani ma non dimenticati giorni del congedo fiorentino.’ Sara Mamone, Firenze e Parigi. due capitali dello spettacolo per una regina Maria de’ Medici (Milan, 1987), p. 260. As early as 1603, a medal cast by Guillaume Dupré figured her as Minerva and Henry IV as Mars; see Deborah Marrow, The Art Patronage of Maria de’ Medici (Ann Arbor, 1982), pp. 57–8. Kathleen Crawford, Perilous Performances. Gender and Regency in Early Modern France (Cambridge, MA, 2004), pp. 62–4 and 79, has discussed this image of her medals as well as her ceremonial representations (for this reference I am grateful to Joanna Milstein). Following Marrow's study of how Marie used the Rubens cycle for her political ends, several others have returned to this question, including Sarah R. Cohen, ‘Gender and Personification in the Maria de Médicis Cycle’, The Art Bulletin, 85, no. 3 (2003), pp. 490–522; and Sara Galletti, ‘Rubens’ Life of Maria de’ Medici. Dissimulation and the Politics of Art in Early Seventeenth-Century France’, Renaissance Quarterly, 67, no.3 (2014), pp. 878–916, with an up-to-date bibliography.

Although Marie de Medici was not so foolhardy as to go on stage, a marvellous technological feat placed the ballet at her feet during the Ballet de Madame: it occurred when a giant cloud ridden by a performer rose up to the dais where she and her son the King were seated. Marie's reluctance to present herself onstage can perhaps be linked to the risk of denigrating the royal majesty through participation in festivities; see Mark Greengrass, ‘Henri III, festival culture and the rhetoric of royalty’, in Ronnie Mulryne (ed.), Europa Triumphans (Aldershot, 2004), vol. i, p. 110.

13 Dubost, Maria de Médicis, p. 437.

14 Nicola Courtright, ‘The Representation of the French-Spanish Marriage Alliance in the Medici Cycle: Concorde Perpetuelle’, in Luc Duerloo, Malcolm Smuts (eds), Rubens and the Thirty Years War (Turnhout, in preparation). The author gratefully acknowledges Nicola Courtright's generosity in sharing an early draft of her forthcoming essay.

15 ‘Il faut bien que ma fille donne une fête au public avant son départ pour l'Espagne et que les Parisiens se souviennent d'une Princesse que la France va perdre.’ Michel Le Vassor, Histoire du règne de Louis XIII roi de France et de Navarre (10 vols., Amsterdam, 1700–11), vol. ii (1702), part 1, p. 209. The quotation also appears in McGowan, L'Art du ballet, p. 86; Mamone, Firenze e Parigi, p. 260; and Christout, Le Ballet de cour, p. 7. Shortly after the ballet took place, the official French journal carried a similarly worded justification: ‘Leurs Majestez voulurent que Madame avant que sortir de France pour estre conduite en Espagne, donnast quelque signalé contentement aux François, & quelque obligation particuliere en la veuë de ceste Princesse: et sur ce prinrent resolution de luy faire danser un Ballet, dont la sumptuosité accompagnant les inventions non seulement surpassast ce qui s'éstoit fait par le passé en semblables effects, mais ostast encore à l'advenir l'esperance de rien faire de mesme.’ Le Mercure françois, 4 (1615–1617), p. 9.

16 McGowan, L'Art du ballet, pp. 85–6, 98–9.

17 On the Prince of Condé, see Caroline Bitsch, Vie et carrière d'Henri de Bourbon, prince de Condé (1588–1646). Exemple de comportement et d'idées politiques au début du XVIIe siècle (Paris, 2008).

18 On the strife between the aristocrats and the crown in the years that Marie de Medici was negotiating the double marriage, see Nicolas Le Roux, ‘A Time of Frenzy: Dreams of Union and Aristocratic Turmoil (1610–1615)’, in McGowan (ed.), Dynastic Marriages, pp. 19–38; J. H. Elliott, ‘The Political Context of the 1612–1615 Franco-Spanish Treaty’, in the same, p. 14; Arlette Jouanna, Le Devoir de révolte: la noblesse française et la gestation de l'Etat moderne, 1559–1661 (Paris, 1989), pp. 223–4; Dubost, Marie de Médicis, pp. 430–5. Several of the principal aristocratic conspirators left court in early 1614, in a sign of protest or for their own safety: Condé, Mayenne, Longueville, and Vendôme (Le Roux, ‘A Time of Frenzy’, p. 30). The document on the ballet that is published here indicates that at least some of these rebellious nobles had accepted the Queen's invitation to the ballet; the presence of so many enemies in close quarters no doubt heightened tensions during the event. McGowan, L'Art du ballet, p. 98, cites a libellous chapbook that appeared shortly after the ballet, La Cassandre françoise (1615, BNF, Lb³⁶ 426), which warned that the King should not marry outside of France. Not only did the anti-Spanish ‘politiques' oppose the marriage alliance with Spain, but so did French Protestants, as it threatened to increase Catholic influence and jeopardise the religious freedoms of the Huguenots; see Elliott, ‘The Political Context’, p. 13; Le Roux, ‘A Time of Frenzy’, pp. 26, 34. On Henry IV's political alliance with Savoy, see Elliott, ‘The Political Context’, p. 9.

19 Le Roux, ‘A Time of Frenzy’, pp. 30–33. The 1615 chapbook La Cassandre françoise (cited above) alluded to the danger Marie de Medici faced from what would follow upon the Etats Généraux: ‘[…] ils vous [Marie de Médicis] ont restably; mais ce sont eux maintenant qui les premiers ont trace le chemin de vostre ruyne’.

20 ASF, Mediceo del Principato [hereafter MdP] 4875, ‘Manifest de ce qui se passa dernierement aux Estats généraux, entre le Clergé & le tiers Estat MDCXV,’ unnumbered folios. This libel was clearly retribution for the Prince of Condé's defamatory references to Concini and his supporters (that is, Marie de Medici's friends) as ‘Jews, magicians, poisoners & murderers', on which see Le Roux, ‘A Time of Frenzy’, p. 33.

21 ‘Purche negandolo, si vede quasi manifesta una guerra civile arrabbiata’. Deciphered transcription of undated letter of Scipione Ammirato in Paris to Giovanni Battista Bartolini Baldelli in Florence, ASF, MdP 4629, 567r. Ammirato's original ciphered letter to Bartolini, dated 25 February 1615, is at MdP 4629, 564r-566v. Modern historians concur with Ammirato's statement; according to Le Roux, ‘A Time of Frenzy’, p. 33, ‘the beginning of 1615 found the entire kingdom teetering on insurrection’.

22 ‘De l'heureuse entrée de majorité [du roi], de la réunion de ses Princes, et de la paisible, et quasi inesperée tranquillité que les Estats généraux ont confirmée à tout l'Estat’. McGowan, L'Art du ballet, p. 93, citing Libretto, p. 3.

23 McGowan, L'Art du ballet, pp. 92–3.

24 See Kate van Orden, Music, Discipline and Arms in Early Modern France (Chicago, 2005), p. 4.

25 Letter of Catherine de Medici ‘Au Roy Monsieur mon fils' (Charles IX) dated 18 September 1583, in Hector de La Ferrière (ed.), Lettres de Catherine de Médicis (11 vols., Paris, 1880–1943), vol. ii, pp. 90–5, esp. p. 92: ‘[…] j'ay ouy dire au Roy vostre grand-père qu'il falloit deux choses pour vivre en repos avec les François et qu'ils aimassent leur Roy: les tenir joyeux, et occuper a quelque exercice […] et le Roy vostre père aussi, avec des autres exercices honnestes èsquels il s'employoit et les faisoit employer; car les François ont tant accoustumé, s'il n'est guerre, de s'exercer, que qui ne leur fait faire, ils s'emploient à autres choses plus dangereuses'. This letter has been cited in discussions of the motivation behind the French court's lavish spectacles of the sixteenth and seventeeth centuries in Christout, Le Ballet de cour, p. 7; and Una McIlvenna, ‘“A Stable of Whores”?: The “Flying Squadron” of Catherine de Medici’, in Nadine Akkerman and Brigid Houben (eds), The Politics of Female Households: Ladies-in-Waiting across Early Modern Europe (Leiden-Boston, 2014), p. 204. For political analyses of court ballet in France, see Ewa Kociszewska, ‘War and Seduction in Cybele's Garden. Contextualizing the Ballet des Polonais', Renaissance Quarterly, 65, no. 3 (2012), pp. 809–63; and Prest, ‘The Politics of Ballet’.

26 Michel Le Vassor, Histoire générale, vol. ii, part 1, pp. 209–210. Cf. McGowan, L'Art du ballet, p. 99. On the Duke of Bouillon's political interests, see Le Roux, ‘A Time of Frenzy’, pp. 20–21. On the Estates General, which the Prince of Condé had instigated but which had concluded in the Queen's favour by approving the Spanish marriages and reinforcing royal absolutism, see Dubost, Marie de Médicis, pp. 442–3; and Le Roux, ‘A Time of Frenzy’, pp. 30–33.

27 On the closing ceremony of the assembly at the Salle de Bourbon, see Luca degli Asini Fabbroni's report sent from Paris to Giovanni Battista Bartolini Baldelli in Florence in ASF, MdP 5974, fols 310r-12v, ‘Relatione della Cerimonia fattasi nel Serrare delli Stati Generali in Parigi il dì 23 di febbraio 1615’. Here the Grande Salle de Bourbon is described as a ‘luogo capace et proportionato per simili funzioni […] Il Teatro adunque della Sala compariva alla vista vaghissimo, poiche ne i Terrazzini ch'attorno la circondano vi si vedevano grandissimo numero di Dame, et Cavalieri’. Compare with ASF, Carte Strozziane, prima serie, 55, fol. 47r, ‘Relatione della ceremonia del serrare degli Stati’.

28 The hall at the Petit-Bourbon, significantly larger than the Grande Salle du Louvre, measured approximately 70 yards by 18 yards, with two staggered rows of seating; see Thomas Edward Lawrenson, The French Stage and Playhouse in the XVIIth Century: A Study in the Advent of the Italian Order (New York, 1986), p. 168, where it was first identified as the venue for the Ballet de Madame, a position then followed by Mamone, Firenze e Parigi, p. 264, and more recently by Dubost. Although McGowan, L'Art du ballet, p. 88, argued instead for the Louvre location, the eyewitness account published in Howarth, French Theatre, pp. 95–9, would seem to definitively put the debate to rest. Degli Asini's account gives indirect evidence of the Petit-Bourbon location by describing the unpaved roads leading to the site. The Louvre would not have presented such challenges. Also, the audience capacity noted by degli Asini is in line with what has been discovered about the hall of the Petit-Bourbon.

29 A copy of the 1615 engraving reached the Medici court. See the letter of 26 March 1615, Luca degli Asini Fabbroni in Paris to Giovanni Batista Bartolini in Florence, ASF, MdP 4629, fol. 579r: ‘Mando una stampa, che rappresenta la Gran Sala di Borbon quando vi si fece l'Apertura degli Stati […]’.

30 Gough, ‘Ballet de la reine. New Evidence’, p. 110, found that rehearsals for the 1605 Ballet de la Reine began less than a month before it was performed, but that performance did not involve the elaborate machinery and the complicated stage set changes that characterize the present ballet.

31 Letter of 13 March 1615, Luca degli Asini Fabbroni in Paris to Giovanni Battista Bartolini Baldelli in Florence, ASF, Carte Strozziane, prima serie, 55, fol. 56r: ‘Qua si và preparando un bellissimo balletto fatto da Madama la Regina di Spagna [Cancelled: che doveva] il quale si doveva iniziare questo Carnovale ma i peraramenti [paramenti] hanno ricerchato più tempo di quello, che non si pensava ^∧et si tiene che sarà cosa maravigliosa^∧ et domenica che saremo à i 15 si rappresenterà sollenemente nella gran sala di Borbone.’ See also the avviso of 12 March 1615, ASF, MdP 4853, fol. 188v; and the avviso of 12 March 1615, fol. 189r.

32 Henry IV danced in a ballet in 1604, but he sought to minimize expenditures on them due to the tense political climate following the Wars of Religion. See McGowan, L'Art du ballet, pp. 54, 88. On the elaborate new form of stage devised for the Ballet de Madame, see ibid., p. 90; also, Thomas Fish, ‘Manifesting the Miraculous: Tomaso Francini's Scenic Innovations for the Ballet de Cour’, Theatre Arts Journal, 2, no. 1 (2014), pp. 20–39. The contributors to Marie's lavish production were considered Paris's best: the poetic verses are attributed to François de Malherbe (1555–1628), who worked with Sieur Durand on the concept as well; the machinist was Tommaso Francini; and the musicians were Guédron, Boësset and Le Bailly (McGowan, L'Art du ballet, pp. 87–8).

33 On the ballets produced by the French aristocracy since Henry IV's assassination, including that of the Prince of Condé, see McGowan, L'Art du ballet, p. 85; Nanie Bridgman, ‘L'Artistocratie française et la ballet de cour’, Cahiers de l'Association internationale des études françaises, 9 (1957), pp. 9–21.

34 On Marie de Medici's delay of the marriages while France was in an upheaval and the Prince of Condé was planning a revolt, see Elliott, ‘The Political Context’, pp. 12–14.

35 There are conflicting reports as to whether or not the ballet was aborted on 19 March 1615, for some claimed that it was in fact performed on the 19^th after a long delay. The Florentine account published here states clearly that no performance occurred on the 19^th. Cited in McGowan, L'Art du ballet, p. 88, Bassompierre reported that the crowd was so great and the disorder so uncontained that the ballet was held on both the 19^th of March and the 22^nd. A Parisian diary kept by the King's physician (BNF, Ms. Fr. 4025, published as Madeleine Foisil (ed.), Journal de Jean Héroard Médecin de Louis XIII (Paris, 1989), and cited in McGowan, L'Art du ballet, p. 88, n. 20), reports that the author went to the ballet on Thursday 19 March and did not return home until 4 AM (‘quatre heures après minuict’), and then went again to the ballet held on Sunday 22 March, which started at ‘huict heures et demie’, after which he was home by ‘une heure après-minuict’. In the avviso of 16 March 1615 (ASF, MdP 4853, fol. 189v), it is reported that the ‘balletto di Madama la Principessa di Spagna’ took place on the 19^th and lasted eight hours ‘havendo cominciato alli 8, cioè 4 hore inanzi la mezzanotte, et finito alle 4, cioè 4 hore passata la mezzanotte, et è riuscito benissimo et in ogni sodisfazione di queste Maestà. Si dice che lo faranno di nuovo domenica notte che seranno li 22 di questo per la seconda volta, per darne la vista a cui non l'ha potuto vedere la prima’. It seems that the performance of 19 March was only seen by the inner circle of the court, and served as a dress rehearsal for the more important performance on the 22^nd.

36 Avviso of 12 March 1615, ASF, MdP 4853, fol. 188v: ‘senza il piano della sala vi era luoco tutto all'intorno per 2500 persone, ma essendo state falsificate le marche che erano state date, vene entrorno più di 4000, et causorno tanta confusione che la Regina fu neccessitata di fare aprire le Porte et licentiare ogn'uno, ne hora si sa ancora quandosi debba fare’. On the numbers in attendance during ballet de cour performances, see Gough, ‘Ballet de la reine. New Evidence’, pp. 110–11 and p. 139, n. 10.

37 The second time the ballet was scheduled, tickets (mereau) were tokens made of metal, either copper or lead, to confound the forgers. See Kettering, ‘Favour and Patronage’, p. 395, citing Bassompierre's Journal de ma vie (Chanterac edn), vol. ii, pp. 1–2.

38 On the displeasures, such as crowding and thievery, that might be experienced even during a normal performance of a court ballet, see Gough, ‘Ballet de la reine. New Evidence’, p. 111.

39 ‘La plupart des députés étaient méscontentes de ce désordre et disaient que la France était incapable d'ordre’. F. Rapine, Recueil très exact et curieux de tout ce qui s'est fait et passé de singulier et memorable en l'Assemblée générale des Estats (Paris, 1651), p. 62, cited in Mamone, Firenze e Parigi, p. 259.

40 Letter of 25 March 1615, Luca degli Asini Fabbroni in Paris to Giovanni Battista Bartolini Baldelli in Florence, ASF, MdP 5974, c.325r: ‘Mando per Madama Serenissima un poco di relatione, ch'ho composta del balletto ultimamente rappresentatosi, mi favorirà Vostra Signoria di presentargliela et con questo ordinario non scrivo a Sua Altezza lettera d'avvisi per impedimento d'una solenne infreddatura che presi la prima volta quando andai per entrare al balletto, dove per la gran fatica dell'entrare sudai, et raffreddai sebene nella stanza stetti poi commodo, et hebbi commodità di notare ogni minutua per poter farne la relatione, ma per ritornare a proposito della infreddatura io non sono potuto uscire di casa et andare ad intendere delle nuove.’

41 In contrast to degli Asini's six-folio account of the ballet, Bartolini's was barely six lines. See the relevant letter of 25 March 1615, Matteo Bartolini Baldelli in Paris to Curzio Picchena in Florence, ASF, MdP 4629, fol. 578r: ‘Madama Sorella del Rè fece il suo balletto, che in verità riuscì bellissmo, et ella medesima la guidò, et con tanta leggiadria, che fece maravigliare tutti, et perche Vostra Altezza possa far sentire tutto il suggetto di esso, le mando una relatione stampata; et essendo stati invitati tutti gli Ambasciatori et Ministri de Principi, la Maestà della Regina mi ha fatto l'honore di far chiamare ancor me […]’. The printed account he mentions having sent to Florence is not traceable.

42 Letter of 12 February 1616, Luca degli Asini Fabbroni in Paris to Giovanni Battista Bartolini Baldelli: ‘Vostra Signoria potrà dire a Madama Serenissima [Christina of Lorraine] ch'il Signore Matteo studia rettorica, ch'alla professione del segretario par'molto utile, et necessario, et assicuri Sua Altezza [Christina] ch'egli non perde un'ora di tempo, essendo et ne i negotii diligente, et nello studio assiduo’.

43 On degli Asini's career and life at the French Queen Mother's court, see Dubost, Marie de Médicis, p. 747 and passim.

44 Letter of 25 April 1615, Luca degli Asini Fabbroni in Paris to Giovanni Battista Bartolini Baldelli in Florence, ASF, MdP 5974, c.128r: ‘il Serenissimo Grand Duca è uscito del suo anno cattivo poiche il di 12 di maggio, giorno natalitio di S. A., finiscano di terminare del tutto gl'influssi cattivi […] ho di nuovo studiato sopra la qualità dell'anno, che al presente principa per il Gran Duca, et si vede per quanto ne insegnano i fondamenti della Scienza ch'il detto anno è buono et favorevole per la Sanità, di maniera che quelle cattive qualità d'humori somministrate da nocive constellationi che già nei mesi passati gl'influirno malattia […] quelle istesse vengano adesso a distruggersi […] Nè voglio traslasciare di dire ch'il fare al Gran Duca troppi medicamenti può esser cosa più nociva, che utile.’ On astrological medicine in Renaissance Italy, see Anthony Grafton and Nancy Siraisi, ‘Between the Election and My Hopes: Girolamo Cardano and Medical Astrology’, in William R. Newman and Anthony Grafton (eds), Secrets of Nature: Astrology and Alchemy in Early Modern Europe (Boston, 2001), pp. 69–131; and Monica Azzolini, Reading Health in the Stars: Politics and Medical Astrology in Renaissance Milan (Cambridge, MA, 2013).

45 Dubost, Marie de Médicis, p. 747.

46 On the political dimension of royal women's ballets in early modern France, see Gough, ‘Ballet de la reine. New Evidence’, p. 117. As for the reasons why ballets figure in political correspondence, see Kettering, ‘Favour and Patronage’, p. 392: ‘As a meeting place for nobles who came to see and be seen, royal courts were vast stages where everyone was on display. Dancing in ballets was popular because it offered a rare opportunity to be seen by the whole court in a glamorous setting, and so ballets became a stage within a stage’. Visibility at court was, in turn, a key to patronage and links with power.

47 See for instance McGowan, Dance in the Renaissance, p. 130. On this aspect of French spectacles, Nicolas Le Roux, ‘Henry III and the rites of Monarchy’, in Mulryne (ed.), Europa Triumphans, vol. i, p. 118, invokes Jürgen Habermas's model of a ‘public sphere structured by performance’.

48 McGowan, ‘Dance in Sixteenth- and Early Seventeenth-Century France’, Dance, Spectacle, and the Body Politick (Bloomington, 2008), p. 95. Citing François de Scépeaux, sieur de Vieilleville, Mémoires de la vie (Paris, 1838), McGowan describes an account of a typical scene at court in 1556. Vieilleville notes how expertly the French ladies had arranged their jewels so that they might catch the light.

49 There was often no clear solution to matters of ceremonial rank, and while the order of precedence assigned at the papal chapel provided a very visible precendent, Toby Osborne has pointed out that that ‘the ceremonial status that differentiated dynasties and states at particular courts was rarely universal’; see Toby Osborne, ‘The Surrogate War between the Savoys and the Medici: Sovereignty and Precendence in Early Modern Italy’, The International History Review, 29, no. 1 (2007), pp. 1–21, quotation at p.12.

50 Only one case of someone outright refusing an invitation to this play has come to light. See the avviso of 12 March 1615, ASF, MdP 4853, fol. 188r: ‘Il Duca di Longavilla [Henri II d'Orléans, duc de Longueville] dicesi che la regina lo habbia mandato d'invitare a vedere il Balletto di Madama, ma non si è curato di venire dicendo amare meglio per servitio del Rè stare al suo.’

51 On the relative status of the dynasties and republics of Italy in this period, see Osborne, ‘The Surrogate War between the Savoys and the Medici’, pp. 6–8.

52 Ibid., pp. 1–9; for Savoy's recalcitrance to recognize the Medici's grand ducal title, see pp. 10–11.

53 Ibid., p. 15, n. 7.

54 Elliott, ‘The Political Context’, pp. 9–13. Notably, just a few months after the Ballet de Madame, a decisively anti-Spanish bias was demonstrated by the French diplomats who mediated the June 1615 Peace of Asti between Savoy and Spain. See Alison Deborah Anderson, On the Verge of War. International Relations and the Jülich-Kleve Succession (1609–1614) (Leiden, 1999), p. 204.

55 Marie's later foreign alliances are discussed in Toby Osborne, ‘A Queen Mother in Exile: Marie de Médicis in the Spanish Netherlands and England, 1631–41’, in Philip Mansel and Torsten Riotte (eds.), Monarchy and Exile: The Politics of Legitimacy from Marie de Medicis to Wilhelm II (London, 2011), pp. 17–43.

56 Contrast this with Henry IV's obsessive attention to seating order at the 1605 Ballet de la reine and perhaps even his personal enforcement of it, as described in Gough, ‘Ballet de la reine. New Evidence’, pp. 111–12, 117–18.

57 For evidence of the standard practice of dividing male and female spectators, ibid., pp. 111–12.

58 According to Kettering, ‘Favour and Patronage’, p. 415, the Ballet de Madame featured sixteen women dancers including the princesses Elisabeth and Christine, the duchesses of Montpensier and Montmorency, the countesses of Soissons and La Rochefoucauld, the marquises of Verneuil and Sablé, Madame de Puysieulx, and Mademoiselles de Loménie, Crescia, Verderonne, Neufvy, Vitry, and d'Urfé. See also Kettering, ‘Favour and Patronage’, passim, on the general topic of women's dancing in French court ballet, and Christout, Le Ballet de cour, p. 11.

59 Cohen, ‘Gender and Personification’, p. 495. For a related investigation of the gender issue in Marie's patronage, see Gough, ‘Marie de Medici's 1605 Ballet de la reine and the Virtuosic Female Voice’, Early Modern Women, 7 (2012), pp. 127–36. Compare Sheila ffolliott's body of work on Catherine de Medici, including ‘Catherine de Medici as Artemisia: Figuring the Powerful Widow’, in Margaret Ferguson, Maureen Quilligan and Nancy Vickers (eds), Rewriting the Renaissance. The Discourse of Sexual Difference in Early Modern Europe, (Chicago, 1987), pp. 227–41; and ‘A Queen's Garden of Power. Catherine de’ Medici and the Locus of Female Rule’, in Mario Di Cesare (ed.), Papers from the Twenty-First Annual Conference, Medieval and Renaissance texts and studies (Binghamton, 1992), pp. 245–55.

60 At times he appears spellbound by the sheer beauty of the spectacle; furiously writing his account, degli Asini often includes caretted additions to his already written text, or cancels statements in hindsight.

61 Emmanuele Hénin, ‘Parrhasius and the Stage Curtain’, in Caroline van Eck and Stijn Bussels (eds), Theatricality in Early Modern Art and Architecture (Maiden, Mass, and Oxford, 2011), pp. 53–4. Hénin discusses how, in early seventeenth-century France, the painted stage curtain (recently borrowed from Italian scenography) possessed a purpose quite unlike that of the modern curtain. The painted curtain was not used to disguise scene changes. The scenes, according to Hénin, were explicitly changed in front of the audience for their enjoyment, and the process would have been considered part of the total work.

62 ‘Saíno’ (also ‘sajino’) is the Spanish term for the American mammal known as a collared peccary or javelina. Far more interesting than commonplace European farm animals, the exotic collared peccary would have enhanced the spectacle and underlined the distinctness of the ancient Machlye people.

63 McGowan, The Court Ballet of Louis XIII (London, 1986), n.p.

64 Carole Collier Frick, Dressing Renaissance Florence: Families, Fortunes, and Fine Clothing (Baltimore, 2005), p. 4. She asserts that Florentines, from the lowest labourer to the highest potentate, were familiar with cloth and could ‘easily evaluate the wealth of its wearer’.

65 Claude-François Ménestrier, Des ballets anciens (Paris, 1682), p. 106. On Ménestrier's reaction, see Marie-Françoise Christout, Le Ballet de cour, p. 12; McGowan, L'Art du ballet, p. 95.

66 Degli Asini does not seem to have known that in medieval bestiaries the Machlyes had been transfigured into hermaphrodites.

67 McGowan, L'Art du ballet, p. 89, presumed spectators would be awed only by the most sensational aspects of the event. The cloud machine and other scenographic aspects of the Ballet de Madame were designed by Tommaso Francini. Alessandro and Tommaso Francini's cloud machines at Villa Medicea in Pratolino were given as gifts to the French court by Grand Duke Ferdinand I; see Carlo Del Bravo, ‘Francesco a Pratolino’, Artibus et historiae 8 (1987), pp. 37–46; and Iain Fenlon, ‘Competition and Emulation: Music and Dance for the Celebrations in Paris, 1612–1615’, in McGowan (ed.), Dynastic Marriages, pp. 150–51. On Francini, see Fish, ‘Manifesting the Miraculous', pp. 20–39.

68 Gough, ‘Ballet de la reine. New Evidence’, p. 118. On Henry IV's repression of the aristocracy, see Le Roux, ‘A Time of Frenzy’, p. 23.

69 In the original, ‘quattro hore di notte’, i.e. four hours after sunset. Sunset on 22 March in Paris would have occurred at approximately 19:00 hours by modern reckoning.

70 This is meant sarcastically.

71 These would seem to be the natural phenomenon known as Saint Elmo's fire, often seen by sailors as a good portent, particularly after a storm. In Ariosto's 1516 ‘Orlando Furioso’, canto 17 (canto 19 in the 1532 ed.), it is invoked with this positive significance: ‘But now Saint Elmo's fire appeared, which they had so longed for, it settled at the bows of a forestay, the masts and yards all being gone, and gave them hope of calmer airs.’ Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, Guido Waldman (ed.), (Oxford, 1983), p. 222.

72 In the original, the Spanish word ‘saino’ is used. A variant of ‘sajino’, it probably refers to the American mammal called a javelin or peccary in English.

73 ‘Drappo’ meaning ‘cloth’ was used here in the original, but it seems perhaps to be used as a synecdoche.

74 One reading of this passage is that the revellers continued dancing past sunset and until the dawn, but the ballet itself had begun well after sunset, so there would be no need to indicate a change from night to day. The ‘sun’ therefore probably refers to King Louis XIII, who, like his predecessors and his successors, was styled a ‘sun-king’. For imagery to this effect within the ball itself, see McGowan, L'Art du ballet, p. 94.

75 In this transcription, the spelling of the original text has been maintained; when the author's misspellings impede the interpretation of the text, a correct spelling has been added within brackets. Carats are used in this transcription to indicate wherever the text is an emendation or addition to the original state of the draft. Some, but not all, of the cancelled passages have been included. They were included if their content differs notably with the final state of the draft, but they were excluded from the transcription if the alteration seemed to be purely for linguistic reasons such as a stylistic or grammatical preference.

76 The letter, which is dated according to the Florentine calendar, bears the date of February 1614.

77 Later in the eighteenth century this became the Quartiere d'Inverno and is today referred to as the Appartamento della Duchessa d'Aosta.

78 On the pavane, see McGowan, Dance in the Renaissance, pp. 92–3, 96–7.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sheila Barker

Dr Sheila Barker, who completed her PhD at Columbia University in 2002, directs the Medici Archive Project's Jane Fortune Research Program on Women Artists. Her recent publications include: ‘Painting and Humanism in Early Modern Florentine Convents’, in S. Barker and L. Cinelli (eds), Artiste nel Chiostro (2015); ‘Christine of Lorraine and Medicine at the Medici Court’, in J.C. Brown and G. Bendusi (eds), Medici Women. The Making of a Dynasty in Grand Ducal Tuscany (2015); and ‘“Secret and Uncertain”: A History of Avvisi at the Court of the Medici Grand Dukes', in J. Raymond and N. Moxham (eds), News Networks in Early Modern Europe (forthcoming).

Tessa Gurney

Tessa Gurney, a doctoral candidate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, investigates the history of theatre at the early modern courts of the Medici and the Gonzaga, with a particular focus on Giovan Battista Andreini.