A Renaissance War Dance: The Pyrrhic

Abstract

twelve places, the town had been transformed to accommodate huge structures built with due attention to recently rediscovered laws of perspective. There was an obelisk; many statues; an arch showing (among other things) Mars, god of war, and Jupiter, king of the gods; a temple dedicated to Honour and Virtue and surmounted by a triumph drawn by elephants; and, in the Place du Change, Henry and his Court surveyed a replica of the city of Troy. After his triumphal entry and that of his Queen, Catherine de Medici, the royal couple and their entourage repaired to the theatre to see Bibbiena's Calandria, modelled on a play by Plautus. The play had been first performed in Urbino in 1513, and then at Rome in 1514; between its five acts were sung and danced scenes which are usually called interludes. They were familiar to Italian audiences, but as seen at Lyons they were (as far as our records go) the first signs of a genre that was to lead to the creation of both opera and ballet de cour. These novel events have received their fair share of critical