The artistic setting of the French celebration of Henry III’s proclamation as the Polish King in the summer of 1573

Abstract

In the second half of the 16th century, Europe was a stage of various political, military, religious and cultural actions, which took place as a result of the occurrence of larger processes, such as counter-reformation, or they were an impulse for change themselves. Such a situation took place in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth when the last male representative of the Jagiellonian dynasty died without an heir in 1572. The result of this event was the exciting political game for the Polish crown, and the winner was Henry III, the young prince d’Anjou, son of Henry II and Catherine de' Medici, whose election in 1573 opened a new chapter in the Polish statehood.Three months after the election ,Polish emissaries stood at the gates of Paris to bow to the new king, present him with conditions for taking the throne and bring him to Poland where his coronation was to be held in Cracow. Polish legation was awaited in the French capital city and a grand welcoming was prepared for them – the welcoming was to be the first of several celebrations constituting a monumental ceremony of proclamation of Henry III as King of Poland. The present article discusses the stages of Parisian celebrations held in August and September 1573 with their artistic setting. It was arranged and performed by a numer of ourstanding artists representing different fields of art: architecture, sculpture, painting, poetry, music, choreography and dance, and the artists we should mention are Orlando di Lasso, Jean Dorat, Antoine Caron and Germain Pillon. The setting (among other elements) consisted of occasional architectural decorations with complementary visual and inscriptive material, acrobatic shows, and dancing and drama performances, which – thanks to their sophisticated symbolism – were an important tool to create the image of the new king.