Abstract

Ceremony, sometimes modest and sometimes of the greatest splendor, has traditionally greeted important visitors upon their arrival in a country or city-such as heads of state or royal personages, whether or not on some official diplomatic mission-and has often continued throughout the course of their visit. In our own time ceremonial welcomes seem rather meager, in comparison with those of generations when monarchy prevailed and the crowned heads did indeed rule. Then a present or future sovereign's arrival in a city was celebrated with the most elaborate festivities. Observances of a royal entry into a city probably reached their height during the Renaissance, when a town's dignitaries and its citizenry met the visitor and his or her party before the very end of the journey, usually at the town's edge. Then the visitor was often escorted through triumphal arches and entertained with pageants along the way. Both the arches and the pageants, designed especially for the occasion, symbolically celebrated aspects of the guest's life and achievements-past, present, or anticipated. Two other kinds of spectacles, the tournament and the fete, also traditionally greeted the visitor. The tournament was a chivalrous display of military strength and prowess; the court fete was a celebration of the guest through a theatrical entertainment, usually involving vocal and instrumental music, a simple dramatic plot, and, most important, dancing.

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