Abstract
English architect and stage designer Inigo Jones's 1635 ornament for the masque The Temple of Love, by Jones and William Davenant, contains proof of inspiration by accounts of a Florentine and possibly a Trevisan festival. There are several quite obvious analogies between the proscenium arch of The Temple of Love and the Florentine carnival celebrations of the year 1616, which featured a magnificent mock battle and equestrian ballet organized by Cosimo II de' Medici; these include the use of the name Indamora, Brahmin priests, a “naked” Indian sitting on a “whitish” elephant, and an Asian riding a camel. An image of a unicorn used by Jones does not appear in accounts or etchings of the Florentine carnival, but, as the emblem of chastity, complements the masque's theme; the ideal of a chaste and fruitful union in marriage is also the subject of The Temple of Love. Images of a tiger and a unicorn in Jones's ornament, emblematic representations of the contraries of passion, may have been inspired by a tournament held in Treviso, Italy, in 1597.
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