Architecture as Performance in Seventeenth-Century Europe

This book probes the role of culture in state craft by examining how seventeenth-century rulers pressed art and architecture into the service. Alice Jarrard focuses on the ambitious Italian patron, Duke Francesco d'Este of Modena, who deployed art works strategically for his exiled family. Drawing from vital Italian court traditions for his festival practices, the duke imported opera theater designs from Venice and called on famed Roman artists, including Girolamo Rainaldi, Francesco Borromini, Pietro da Cortona, and Gianlorenzo Bernini, to create portraits and palaces. The duke's spectacular image informed Este projects in Rome, and through his designer Vigarani, who was summoned to Paris to build a theater, shaped the early cultural practice of Louis XIV. Demonstrating how performance brought paintings, sculptures, and buildings to life by dissolving the boundaries between distant courts, Jarrard reveals the dynamic role of art in seventeenth-century political discourse.

• First comparative history of ducal Italy and royal courts
• New approach to cultural patronage which highlights its specific political objectives
• Integrates study of display and ceremony with a close look at both painting and architecture