La Sainte-Chapelle tra Parigi e Chambéry: un emblema “replicabile” della sacralità di corte (XV secolo)

Abstract

In the history of the Saintes-Chapelles the 13th century is a cornerstone, for the extraordinary semantic value given by king of France Louis IX to the palatine chapel, built on behalf of Sacred Crown of Christ and as emblem of the sacredness of the kingdom. In the theological and political arena of 13th-15th century Europe, this high symbolic value gives a strong power of representation of the royalty to the Sainte-Chapelle of Paris, making it also the subject of much imitation and reproduction by other courts. However, contrary to what one might think, the paradigms of such imitations and reproductions stay mutable for a long time, and they are not solely identifiable with the devotion to the Passion and the Blood of Christ. That is the context in which the foundation of the Sainte-Chapelle of the Savoy dukedom takes shape in Chambery in the fifteenth century, with details, times and protagonists that this study considers. From this viewpoint, the theme of the Sainte-Chapelle joins with the objectives of an investigation of the politics of the Holy as explained by Ludovic Viallet in the Introduction , and studied through their articulation between central and local powers, political ideology and devotions, political and religious planning of space.