Catherine de' Medici's court festivals

As wife of Henry II of France, Catherine showed interest in the arts and theatre, but it was not until she attained real political and financial power as queen mother that she began the series of tournaments and entertainments that dazzled her contemporaries and continue to fascinate scholars.

With three of her sons on the throne in succession and the country torn by religious civil war, Catherine set out to show not only the French people but foreign courts that the Valois monarchy was as prestigious and magnificent as it had been during the reigns of Francis I and her husband Henry II.

[2] At the same time, she believed these elaborate entertainments and sumptuous court rituals, which incorporated martial sports and tournaments of many kinds, would occupy her feuding nobles and distract them from fighting against each other to the detriment of the country and the royal authority.

[4] She employed the leading artists and architects of the day to create the necessary dramas, music, and scenic effects for these events, which were usually dedicated to the ideal of peace and based on mythological themes.

It is difficult for scholars to piece together the exact form of the entertainments, but clues have been gleaned from the written accounts, scripts, artworks, and tapestries that derived from these famous occasions.

Though such sources must be treated with caution, since they contain demonstrable inaccuracies and contradictions, they provide evidence of the richness and scale of Catherine de' Medici's court festivals.

[8] In 1572, the Huguenot Queen Jeanne d’Albret of Navarre, wrote from the court to warn her son Henry that Catherine presided over a "vicious and corrupt" atmosphere, in which the women made the sexual advances and not the men.

She forbade heavy tilting of the sort that led to the death of her husband in 1559; and she developed and increased the prominence of dance in the shows that climaxed each series of entertainments.

They were accompanied by what has been described as a city on the move,[12] including the King's Council and foreign ambassadors who Catherine hoped would report to their governments on the splendour of the train, offsetting any idea that the French monarchy was on the verge of bankruptcy.

[13] That evening, the court watched a comedy in the great ballroom, which was followed by a ball where 300 "beauties dressed in gold and silver cloth" performed a choreographed dance.

On Mardi Gras, the day after the banquet in the meadow, knights dressed as Greeks and Trojans fought over scantily clad damsels trapped by a giant and a dwarf in a tower on an enchanted island.

In his place he sent "the severe and ferocious" Duke of Alba, with orders to convince Catherine that persecuting, imprisoning, and torturing Huguenots was the way to deal with heretics, not making treaties with them.

The encounter between the two courts was marked by ritual exchanges of costly gifts and a sustained display of ballets, jousts, mock battles, and decorative arts.

As guests were ferried on decorated boats to the island, they passed, among other spectacles, Arion riding two dolphins, harpoonists spearing an artificial whale that spouted red wine, and six tritons sitting on a giant turtle, blowing conch shells.

The royal grandstand was hung with gold-and-silk tapestries illustrating the triumph of Scipio, which Giulio Romano had designed for Francis I. Brantôme recalled in his memoirs that "the Spanish lords and ladies greatly admired it, never having seen anything like it in the possession of their king".

[1] Catherine believed she had showed Spain that the French monarchy, far from being financially ruined and at war with its nobles, remained a glorious force to be reckoned with, capable of financing displays on a stunning scale, backed by a unified court.

They despatched the Huguenots, led by Henry of Navarre, into a hell where, according to an observer, "a great number of devils and imps were making infinite follery and noise".

[24] The remaining festivities were called off after an assassination attempt on the Huguenot leader Admiral Coligny, who was shot from a house by an arquebusier on 22 August and wounded in the elbow and hand.

[25] A year after the massacre, in August 1573, Catherine hosted another lavish set of entertainments, this time for the Polish ambassadors who had arrived to offer the throne of Poland to her son, Henry, Duke of Anjou.

Many poets, artists, musicians, choreographers, contributed to the result, but it was she who was the inventor, one might perhaps say, the producer; she who had the ladies of her court trained to perform these ballets in settings of her devising.

[4] A spectacular fête was held during the reign of Catherine's son Henry III to celebrate the marriage of his sister-in-law, Marguerite of Lorraine, to his favourite, Anne, Duke of Joyeuse, on 24 September 1581.

[30] Another of the Joyeuse magnificences was the Ballet Comique de la Reine, devised and presented by Queen Louise, who directed her own team of writers and musicians.

Jupiter transferred Circe's power to the royal family, protected France from the horrors of civil war, and blessed King Henry with the wisdom to govern.