Veneration via Art: Images of Divine Kingship in the Chapel at Versailles

Abstract

Louis XIV’s magnificent palace chapel at Versailles, dedicated in June of 1710, was the major artistic religious statement of his reign (1643–1715). Because public displays of the king’s piety reinforced his authority to rule by divine right, the chapel had political as well as religious importance. Lacking an on-site venerated holy place, Louis XIV and his advisors drew on memory and long-established French conventions to create a completely new monument to express claims of absolute monarchy with Christian subject matter and to provide a worthy setting for official ceremonies and royal worship. Within the chapel are David, Constantine, Charlemagne and St. Louis, four holy kings often linked with Louis XIV and the French monarchy in the seventeenth century. Since the Bourbon kings claimed special relationships with God, the Virgin, the Holy Spirit and Christ, all are prominently featured in the chapel. Juxtaposing such subjects to the living king in his chapel projected political messages beyond those of the Catholic cult. This paper focuses on two of these subjects-St. Louis and Christ-to demonstrate how selected Christian themes illustrated general concepts of sacred kingship and symbolised specific events of Louis’ reign for the glorification and veneration of the monarchy.