French Ceremonial Entries in the Sixteenth Century: Event, Image, Text

The articles in this volume use a variety of disciplinary approaches to examine, each in its own way, the interpretation of texts and archival documents that record French ceremonial entries in the sixteenth century. By their very nature, ceremonial entries require an interdisciplinary approach: they bring together a number of artistic media such as music, architecture, and literature, as well as a range of political concerns including international diplomacy and the relations between urban and royal power. Few cultural constructs offer such rich and varied terrain to the student of sixteenth-century France. The primary purpose of this collection is, therefore, to reflect upon salient aspects of ceremonial entries that may help us to understand how this ritual performed its complex and multidimensional cultural, intellectual, historical, and political work in order to cast a new light on French society in the early modern period.

“This volume offers a variety of scholarly approaches, all solidly grounded in a great deal of empirical research. As a result, this collection will make a major contribution to festival studies in Renaissance France.” 

-Bonner Mitchell, University of Missouri, Columbia

“L’ouvrage érudit est de lecture aisée, les textes sont très bien documentés et les sources clairement indiquées. La diversité des perspectives d’études est d’un grand intérêt, et plusieurs articles offrent de nouvelles pistes de recherche sur les entrées solennelles.” 

-Marie-France Wagner, Université Concordia, Montréal

NICOLAS RUSSELL is assistant professor of French studies at Smith College, Massachusetts. His research interests include early modern intellectual history and conceptions of mental faculties. He is currently studying the concept of collective memory as it appears in sixteenth-century historiography and royal entries.

HÉLÈNE VISENTIN is associate professor of French studies at Smith College, Massachusetts, and a member of the Groupe de Recherche sur les Entrées Solennelles. Her research projects bear on the history and the aesthetics of the performing arts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

REVIEW
The Sixteenth Century Journal, 41.2 (2010), pp. 541-542. Reviewed by Linda Rouillard.