Grand Carrousel

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Le Grand Carrousel (The Great Carrousel) was an equestrian play that took place on June 5 and 6, 1662 on the occasion of the birth of the son of the French King Louis XIV . It was the first court festival organized under him and the last in Paris .

Le Grand Carrousel donné par Louis XIV dans la cour des Tuileries à Paris, pour célébrer la naissance du dauphin (5-6 June 1662) , painting by Henri de Gissey.

history

After Heinrich II lost his life in a horse show in 1559, the duels on horseback with lances supported by the royal court disappeared in France . From then on, tournaments were organized theatrically and chivalry was cultivated in the form of symbolic acts. From an early age, King Ludwig had tried to show himself to his subjects with all the qualities of a knight, for the first time in 1656 at a small competition held in the garden of the Palais Cardinal. The heads, which were now ridden with lances, were on a stake and were made with the features of a Persian or a Medusa. The ring game , in which an approaching rider had to fling a spear through a suspended ring , was further refined . From the outset, Ludwig was considered the winner of all competitions, but donated the respective prize to the next winner.

When determining the venue, the architect Antoine-Léonor Houdin first had the idea of ​​a route from the Tuileries Gardens to the Louvre Palace , but it was limited to the jardin de Mademoiselle (now Place du Carrousel ), which is also through the windows the Louvre galleries was easy to see. Thematically, the event borrowed from mythical carousels of antiquity, the Sarmatian Queen Circe is said to be the inventor. She had claimed to be the daughter of the god of light and, in his honor, had the orbit of the celestial bodies and the sun re-enacted by carriages moving in circles. She called the plays in circular arenas “circus”. Ludwig had already been celebrated by the audience as the Sun King at ballet appearances, now he consciously accepted the title by creating a reference to the sun god Apollo through the sun chariot "carrus soli" .

The contract for the design of the temporary amphitheater for 700 horses was given to the set designer Carlo Vigarani , who had recently constructed the Théâtre des Tuileries with his father Gaspare Vigarani . He gave the riding course a square shape, limited on three sides each 70 toises long by spectator stands with four steps for a total of 15,000 people - only the area of ​​access to the track was in the shape of a semicircle. There the king camped with his brigade, while the four competing teams were accommodated in the corners of the square. Within eight days, Vigarani had a three-story tribune built for the queens, princes and ambassadors in front of the central pavilion of the Tuileries Palace , with columns made of imitation marble with gilded plinths and capitals.

Stipatores, Equus Ductitius, Agasones, Americani - Engraving by François Chauveau from a series of 106 illustrations published in 1670

The king's costume and the armor of his horse were also conceivably splendid - he was disguised as a Roman emperor and had the sun as an emblem. The other four brigades, led by nobles, represented different places in the world. This should be Persians, Turks, Indians and Americans, dressed in dresses gleaming with gemstone jewelry, all designed by the King's draftsman Henri de Gissey . Before the start of the competitions, the participants strolled through some Parisian streets, despite the great heat, the new ruler wanted to be seen by the people who were plagued by one of the worst famines these days.

Graphic by Israël Silvestre

The engraver Israël Silvestre was commissioned to capture the train from the Hôtel de Vendôme to the Palais des Tuileries in graphics. His sequence of depictions shows the riders at different stations. However, the king's recourse to representatives of the high nobility was not without ulterior motives: whoever took part here was busy and could not intrigue at the same time. In addition, the effort most likely led to ruin and further dependence on the royal court would be the result. The event was a personal success, especially for Carlo Vigarani, and he was called upon again in February 1667 when the last three days of the carnival were to be celebrated with an unprecedented carrousel in Versailles . Every visitor was asked to be masked in the manner of other countries. Apparently the carrousel was quite handsome - very few spectators came. The king was upset that the Parisians would stay away, but the cost of a mask must have deterred many. After a day the event was canceled.

literature

  • Olivier Bernier: Ludwig XIV. A biography ( Louis XIV. A Royal Life , German), trans. by Manfred Allié , Benzinger-Verlag, Zurich / Düsseldorf 1998, p. 115 f.
  • Jérôme de La Gorce: Carlo Vigarani, intendant des plaisirs de Louis XIV , Editions Perrin / Etablissement public du musée et du domaine national de Versailles, 2005, pp. 43–48.
  • Uwe Schultz : The ruler of Versailles. Ludwig XIV and his time , Verlag CH Beck, Munich 2006, pp. 97-101.

Individual evidence

Jérôme de La Gorce: Carlo Vigarani, intendant des plaisirs de Louis XIV , Editions Perrin / Etablissement public du musée et du domaine national de Versailles, 2005.
  1. ↑ p. 43
  2. ↑ p. 44
  3. ↑ p. 46
  4. ↑ a b p. 47
  5. ↑ p. 48
  6. ↑ p. 82 f.
Uwe Schultz: The ruler of Versailles. Ludwig XIV and his time , Verlag CH Beck, Munich 2006.
  1. ↑ p. 99
  2. ↑ p. 98
Olivier Bernier: Ludwig XIV. A biography ( Louis XIV. A Royal Life , German), trans. by Manfred Allié, Benzinger-Verlag, Zurich / Düsseldorf 1998.
  1. ↑ p. 115
Other
  1. ↑ Lawrence M. Bryant: Ritual, Ceremony and the Changing Monarchy in France, 1350–1789 , Ashgate Publishing, Farnham 2010, p. 210.
  2. ^ Johannes Hösle: Molière. His life, his work, his time , Piper Verlag, Munich 1987, p. 116.
  3. ↑ Christian Quaeitzsch: Ephemeral art at the court of the sun king . archimaera - architektur.kultur.kontext.online, May 2010, p. 45.