The essays in this volume concentrate on festival iconography, the visual and written languages, including ephemeral and permanent structures, costume, drama, inscriptions and published festival books that ‘voiced’ the social, political and cultural messages incorporated in processional entries in early modern Europe. The volume includes a transcript of the newly-discovered Register of Lionardo di Zanobi Bartholini, a Florentine merchant, which details the expenses for each worker for the possesso (or entry) of Pope Leo X to Rome in April 1513.

The essays in this volume concentrate on festival iconography, the visual and written languages, including ephemeral and permanent structures, costume, drama, inscriptions and published festival books that 'voiced' the social, political and cultural messages incorporated in processional entries in Early Modern Europe. The volume includes a transcript of the newly-discovered Register of Lionardo di Zanobi Bartholini, a Florentine merchant, which details the expenses for each worker for the possesso (or entry) of Pope Leo X to Rome in April 1513.

The fourteen essays that comprise this volume concentrate on festival iconography, the visual and written languages, including ephemeral and permanent structures, costume, dramatic performance, inscriptions and published festival books that ’voiced’ the social, political and cultural messages incorporated in processional entries in the countries of early modern Europe. The volume also includes a transcript of the newly-discovered Register of Lionardo di Zanobi Bartholini, a Florentine merchant, which sets out in detail the expenses for each worker for the possesso (or Entry) of Pope Leo X to Rome in April 1513.

This fourth volume in the European Festival Studies, 1450–1700 series breaks with precedent in stemming from a joint conference (Venice, 2013) between the Society for European Festivals Research and the PALATIUM project supported by the European Science Foundation. The volume draws on up-to-date research by a Europe-wide group of academic scholars and museum and gallery curators to provide a unique, intellectually-stimulating and beautifully-illustrated account of temporary architecture created for festivals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, together with permanent architecture pressed into service for festival occasions across major European locations including Italian, French, Austrian, Scottish and German. Appealing and vigorous in style, the essays look towards classical sources while evoking political and practical circumstances and intellectual concerns – from re-shaping and re-conceptualizing early sixteenth-century Rome, through providing for the well-being and political allegiance of Medici-era Florentines and exploring the teasing aesthetics of performance at Versailles to accommodating players and spectators in seventeenth-century Paris and at royal and ducal events for the Habsburg, French and English crowns. The volume is unique in its field in the diversity of its topics and the range of its scholarship and fascinating in its account of the intellectual and political life of Early Modern Europe.

Queens of Poland are conspicuously absent from the study of European queenship—an absence which, together with early modern Poland’s marginal place in the historiography, results in a picture of European royal culture that can only be lopsided and incomplete. Katarzyna Kosior cuts through persistent stereotypes of an East-West dichotomy and a culturally isolated early modern Poland to offer a groundbreaking comparative study of royal ceremony in Poland and France. The ceremonies of becoming a Jagiellonian or Valois queen, analysed in their larger European context, illuminate the connections that bound together monarchical Europe. These ceremonies are a gateway to a fuller understanding of European royal culture, demonstrating that it is impossible to make claims about European queenship without considering eastern Europe.

For the first time, Early Modern Streets unites the diverse strands of scholarship on urban streets between circa 1450 and 1800 and tackles key questions on how early modern urban society was shaped and how this changed over time. Much of the lives of urban dwellers in early modern Europe were played out in city streets and squares. By exploring urban spaces in relation to themes such as politics, economies, religion, and crime, this edited collection shows that streets were not only places where people came together to work, shop, and eat, but also to fight, celebrate, show their devotion, and express their grievances. The volume brings together scholars from different backgrounds and applies new approaches and methodologies to the historical study of urban experience. In doing so, Early Modern Streets provides a comprehensive overview of one of the most dynamic fields of scholarship in early modern history. Accompanied by over 50 illustrations, Early Modern Streets is the perfect resource for all students and scholars interested in urban life in early modern Europe.

From oaths and hand-kissing to coronations and baptisms, Power and Ceremony in European History considers the governing practices, courtly rituals, and expressions of power prevalent in Europe and the Ottoman Empire from the medieval age to the modern era. Bringing together political and art historical approaches to the study of power, this book reveals how ceremonies and rituals - far from simply being ostentatious displays of wealth - served as a primary means of communication between different participants in political and courtly life. It explores how ceremonial culture changed over time and in different regions to provide readers with a nuanced comparative understanding of rituals and ceremonies since the middle ages, showing how such performances were integral to the evolution of the state in Europe. This collection of essays is of immense value to both historians and art historians interested in representations of power and the political culture of Europe from 1450 onwards.

In a fresh examination of the French ceremonial entry, Neil Murphy considers the role these events played in the negotiation between urban elites and the Valois monarchy for rights and liberties. Moving away from the customary focus on the pageantry, this book focuses on how urban governments used these ceremonies to offer the ruler (or his representatives) petitions regarding their rights, liberties and customs. Drawing on extensive research, he shows that ceremonial entries lay at the heart of how the state functioned in later medieval and Renaissance France.

Seldom has a royal court invited such intensive study as that of Henry VIII, or become so prominent in popular culture. Nonetheless, Intercultural Explorations and the Court of Henry VIII is committed to offering a fresh perspective on Tudor court culture, by using continental sources to contextualize, nuance, and challenge long-held perspectives that have been formed through the use of well-studied, Anglophone sources. Using a wide variety of textual sources, from ambassadorial correspondence, account books, household étiquettes, legal records, royal warrants, and marital contracts, to play texts and travel accounts, this study presents original research in history, literature, and cultural history. The case studies in Intercultural Explorations and the Court of Henry VIII address specific questions that challenge what we know or think we know about Tudor court culture. For example: was it good taste to bring a jester to a royal deathbed? Was John Blanke really the first black musician to perform at the Tudor court, or did he follow the footsteps of another celebrated performer of African descent? When Charles V came to meet Henry VIII, did he eat from his own plate? And why did courtiers express themselves negatively about Anne of Cleves's appearance? By addressing such specific questions, Intercultural Explorations and the Court of Henry VIII will show that however quintessentially 'English' Henry VIII's court, it was essentially a place of cultural and intercultural encounters that is best understood when studied in dialogue across languages, geographical barriers, and scholarly disciplines.

This sixth volume in the European Festival Studies series stems from a joint conference (Venice, 2013) between the Society for European Festivals Research and the European Science Foundation’s PALATIUM project. Drawing on up-to-date scholarship, a Europe-wide group of early-career and experienced academics provides a unique account of spectacular occasions of state which influenced the political, social and cultural lives of contemporary societies. International pan-European turbulence associated with post-Reformation religious conflict supplies the context within which the book explores how the period’s rulers and élite families competed for power – in a forecast of today’s divided world.