A Theater of Diplomacy. Ellen R. Welch
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cultural hegemony derived, at least in part, from France’s investment in spectacular entertainments whose reputation echoed throughout Europe.
The chapters that follow investigate several of the most richly documented examples of diplomatic entertainment either organized or witnessed by French statesmen from the mid-sixteenth to the early eighteenth century. Arranged chronologically, the chapters trace major evolutions in the theory and practice of diplomacy and court spectacle, particularly from the French perspective. The book begins in the mid-sixteenth century when Valois patrons attempted—and largely failed—to heal international conflicts by commissioning entertainments from artists steeped in idealistic, neo-Platonic theories of the performing arts’ ability to bring about earthly harmony. A more productive period for diplomatic entertainments was ushered in by a shift from neo-Platonic to neo-Aristotelian understandings of the arts’ power in the early and mid-seventeenth century. As the custom of including the diplomatic corps in court entertainments became routine, a conventional repertoire of iconography and choreography emerged to reflect upon matters of war, peace, and international alliance. Ballets and other spectacles constituted a kind of rhetoric capable of engaging with diplomatic questions for an exclusive audience in possession of the cultural knowledge to understand and appreciate its rarefied languages. Across different European stages, sovereigns, via diplomatic spectators, engaged in a conversation about diplomacy through the performing arts. Under Louis XIV, the flourishing of court entertainment paradoxically led to a diminishment of its diplomatic efficacy, as the miseen-scène of absolute monarchy was increasingly inhospitable to the idea of a “conversation” among European powers. At the same time, entertainments aimed to construct a more global diplomatic society by expanding the audience for Louis’s glory beyond Europe into Asia and Africa.
By the turn of the eighteenth century, French political and cultural dominance led to the emergence of a well-codified, French-inflected style of diplomacy that influenced diplomatic practice across Europe. This modern form of diplomacy emphasized legal and cultural training for diplomats and relied less on the aristocratic arts. By the end of Louis XIV’s reign, the form of expert diplomatic performance that transferred seamlessly between the ballet stage and the courtly one had lost its relevance. The pervasive theatricality of sixteenth-and seventeenth-century diplomatic practice was gradually transformed from an integral part of statecraft into an empty show. Throughout this period of transition, however, theatrical entertainments continued to play a role in diplomatic interactions. In particular, media coverage of internationally attended court fêtes or performances at the Opera or Palais Royal transformed diplomacy into a virtual spectacle directed at a broader audience of domestic subjects. The “theater of diplomacy” shifted from the exclusive space of the court to a more public sphere. This evolution set the stage for the emergence of modern “public diplomacy” or “cultural diplomacy” as we know it today.
Attending to the artistic and theatrical dimension of early modern diplomacy, A Theater of Diplomacy answers John Watkins’s recent call for “a New Diplomatic History” of early modern Europe: a “cross-disciplinary study of international relations” that would demonstrate diplomacy’s profound entanglements with all facets of culture.27 Complementing recent studies on literary representations of diplomacy, poets’ work as ambassadors, art objects in diplomatic gift exchange, and diplomats as collectors and connoisseurs, this book shows how the arts of spectacle informed diplomatic culture and practice.28 Although the form and uses of diplomatic entertainment evolved significantly over the long period considered here, spectacles consistently highlighted the centrality of theater to diplomatic interactions. Even more than clichéd metaphors likening the ambassador’s role to that of an actor, diplomatic entertainments reveal the performativity of international relations that only become visible through representations (such as allegorical ballets) or in the theatricalized context of a congress or treaty signing. Concrete examples of the uses of dramatic spectacle in international relations demonstrate that the theater served not only as a metaphor for diplomacy but as a site for imagining and theorizing the nature of diplomatic relations.
Chapter 1
Orchestrating Dissonant Concord in the Bayonne Entertainments (1565)
A series of luxurious tapestries housed in the Uffizi Gallery offers spectators a window into the culture of sixteenth-century court festivity. Members of the French royal family stand at the border of each tableau, gesturing as if to welcome the viewer into their world. The eye tracks toward a middle ground occupied by marvelous displays: a swirling crowd of white horses mounted by richly costumed knights, golden boats circling a tiny island at the center of a bright blue lake, a thrashing sea monster observed by elegantly appointed noblemen and women. Viewers momentarily join the figures represented in the tapestries as witnesses of the renowned spectacles of the Valois court.
These sumptuous depictions of royal entertainments likely began their life in a workshop in Flanders, making their way to France by the end of the 1580s.1 From there, they traveled to Florence, sent by Catherine de’ Medici as a gift to her granddaughter Christine de Lorraine on the occasion of her marriage to Grand Duke Ferdinand I in 1589.2 The tapestries’ voyage from the Low Countries to France to Florence exemplifies the importance of gift-exchange practices in Renaissance Europe. Sumptuous art objects, often featuring complimentary portraits of the recipient, were meant to sweeten political negotiations or cement alliances between royal families. In the case of the Valois tapestries, the gift also represents the final chapter of a longer and more complex story of diplomacy and artistic exchange.
The story begins with one of the events the tapestries depict: the series of entertainments staged by the French royal family at Bayonne in June 1565 as part of a diplomatic summit. Over several days, the court hosted a masquerade ring-tilt joust, an allegorical assault on an enchanted castle, a chivalric tournament, a boat ride, and an island banquet, along with abundant music, fireworks, and feasting. Guests at the event included the French king Charles IX, his mother, Catherine de’ Medici, members of his court, his sister Elisabeth in her role as Philip II of Spain’s queen, and her entourage of courtiers and diplomats, as well as representatives of England, Scotland, Denmark, Venice, Tuscany, the Vatican, and other European states. In their aftermath, the festivities attracted a larger, vicarious audience. Catherine de’ Medici had the official written account of the entire series of entertainments published in France in a handsome in-quarto volume.3 This account apparently served as the source for the artist Antoine Caron, whose sketches of the events later served as the model for the Flemish tapestry makers. At the same time, several cheaper, pamphlet-size publications advertised the entertainments to an even wider reading public. One Italian-language description of the multiday festivities was printed in Milan. A journal of the events kept by Abel Jouan, a sommelier de cuisine or high-level kitchen servant in Charles’s entourage, appeared as a small book in 1566.4 Beyond these published accounts, written descriptions proliferated in private correspondence, especially through diplomatic networks. Spanish, English, and Italian envoys transcribed their impressions of the ceremonies for their masters back at home. Meanwhile, the royal family sent their version of the events to French diplomats abroad, along with instructions to spread the word of their magnificence.
Figure 1. Valois tapestry depicting “The Water Fête” at Bayonne. Polo Museale Regionale della Toscana, Gabinetto Fotografico, Arrazi 493.
Within a few months of the Bayonne summit, every politician in western Europe would have heard about the entertainments staged there. The diffusion of verbal reports (and a few images) of the festivities demonstrates their importance—and ambivalent utility—as a tool of international relations. It also reveals the complexity of their reception. Their audience was diverse: international, made up of different social ranks and genders, composed of some eyewitnesses and many more vicarious spectators who relied on second-or even thirdhand knowledge of the events. Catherine de’ Medici played an active role in managing the publicity surrounding Bayonne, working to ensure that particular sectors of the audience interpreted the events in an advantageous