Versailles

The study of empires in general, and the Roman empire in particular, may seem only remotely relevant to our understanding of present international politics and their ideological motivations. However, behind their diverse technologies, institutions and symbolic facades, the empires of the past responded to conditions and situations that on a more general level also unfold in our contemporary world.
Empires aim to establish control over vast tracts of space. Their purpose includes making place by, economically, militarily and ideologically controlling their populations and resources. What marks the empire in particular is its scale, and often its heterogeneity. In this sense empire is place-making on the grandest scale. This paper investigates certain aspects of how empires, particularly the Roman, succeeded or failed to expand and uphold the imperial space as an integrated yet diverse hierarchy of places. It is a hierarchy organised in ways that would facilitate the flow of resources into the imperial centre, while also producing and projecting power and policy from the centre towards the periphery, in an effort to uphold the overall system. I will argue that Rome has served as a model for conceiving and an analysing later imperial projects, and that this "imperial mirror" strongly characterises Roman heritage in the present. The heritage of the Roman Empire has contributed to the symbolic repertoire of later imperial projects precisely because its ruins, monuments and history could demonstrate so aptly how imperial power was and is symbolised as place.

Earth Perfect? Nature, Utopia and the Garden is an eclectic, yet rigorous reflection on the relationship--historical, present and future--between humanity and the garden. Through the lens of Utopian Studies--the interdisciplinary field that encompasses fictions all the way through to actual political projects, and urban ideals; in a nutshell, addressing the human natural drive towards the ideal--Earth Perfect? brings together a selection of inspiring essays, each contributed by foremost writers from the fields of architecture, history of art, classics, cultural studies, farming, geography, horticulture, landscape architecture, law, literature, philosophy, urban planning and the natural sciences.
Through these joined voices, the garden emerges as a site of contestation and a repository for symbolic, spiritual, social, political and ecological meaning. Questions such as: "what is the role of the garden in defining humanity's ideal relationship with nature?" and "how should we garden in the face of catastrophic ecological decline?" are addressed through wideranging case studies, including ancient Roman Gardens in Pompeii, Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights, the Gardens of Versailles, organic farming in New England and Bohemia's secret gardens, as well as landscape in contemporary architecture.
Issues relating to the utopian garden are explored thematically rather than chronologically, and organised in six chapters: "Being in nature", "inscribing the garden", "green/house", "The garden politic", "economies of the garden" and "how then shall we garden?". each essay is both individual in scope and part of the wider discourse of the book as a whole, and each is lusciously illustrated, bringing to life the subject with diverse visual material ranging from photography to historical documents, maps and artworks.

Projet initié par le ministre de l’Intérieur Pierre Bénézech en janvier 1797, le « Musée spécial de l’Ecole française » ne connaîtra qu'une dizaine d'années d’existence. Pourtant, il est incontournable dans l’histoire des collections publiques françaises et dans l'histoire de la perception de l'art français.
Cet article a été l'occasion de recherches inédites en archives, sur cet épisode peu connu de l'histoire du château royal, devenu ainsi, par décision politique et au cœur d'une époque aussi paradoxale, quarante ans avant les apports de Louis-Philippe, "un monument à la gloire nationale".

« La France, maîtresse de maison »: cette expression, tirée d’un vade mecum du ministère des Affaires étrangères, résume la tradition d’accueillir avec attention sur le territoire national les dirigeants étrangers pour quelques jours. Généralisées à partir de la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle, ces visites d’État, au sommet du protocole diplomatique, imposent – entre les entretiens bilatéraux, les dîners officiels, les discours et les visites culturelles – que la République assure le logement de ses hôtes dans des résidences alliant prestige, sécurité et confort. À partir de 1959, par décision du général de Gaulle, ce rôle est dévolu au Grand Trianon. Si la renaissance du palais de marbre rose dans les années 1960 est bien connue – notamment grâce à l’ouverture en 1999 par décision de Jacques Chirac de l’aile de Trianon-sous-Bois, autrefois attribuée à la présidence de la République, et à l’exposition « Un président chez le Roi » en 2016 – les aménagements réalisés dans l’aile sud afin de recevoir les chefs d’État n’avaient, jusqu’à présent, jamais été remis en lumière .

409 pages, 98 color illustrations and 97 ink drawings.
Available in paperback and hardback at Amazon. e-book at Peter Lang Publishing: https://doi.org/10.3726/978-1-4331-3959-8

"Paris in Architecture, Literature and Art" is a student textbook and teacher manual in cultural studies that capitalizes on the little exposure liberal arts students have to architecture, and the widespread popularity of Paris across the curriculum. Designed for a college course in the humanities, the book is also suitable for a High School course or a study abroad program in Paris.

The student textbook focuses on Paris, which throughout history has been the stage and experimental ground for artists and intellectuals from all over the world, making it the crucible of western thoughts and consummate material for an interdisciplinary study. Each chapter presents a cultural movement such as the Gothic, classical, romantic and modern that are predominant in the Parisian landscape. The interdisciplinary approach promotes critical thinking, inspiring students to identify and translate esthetic concepts from one discipline to another, and explore, for instance, what impressionist literature or cubist architecture might be.

На основе источников личного происхождения в статье проводится сравнительный анализ отдельных элементов придворного этикета при французском и испанском дво-рах в XVI–XVII вв., выявляются его общие и различные черты, отмечаются отличия.Автор высказывает предположение о возможном взаимовлиянии обоих дворов по-средством брачно-династических отношений.

Rapport de recherche du groupe de travail de l'UIA (2005-2007), constitué de Jean André, Albert Dubalen, Sylvie Laborde, Philippe de Logivière, Laure Merland, Catherine Thiéblin et Jacques Royen, et avec la collaboration de Marie-Odile Hesnard.
Sous la direction de Catherine Blain, architecte, docteur en aménagement et urbanisme, chercheur au laboratoire LADRHAUS (Ecole nationale supérieure d’architecture de Versailles)
Et sous la responsabilité de Marie-Thérèse Robert, Directrice de l’Université Inter-Ages (UIA)
Ed. LADRHAUS/ EaV, juin 2008, 169 p.

It is 1664 and the lavish festivities staged in the gardens of Versailles are underway. King Louis XIV of France is hosting a seven-day “Plaisirs de l’île enchantée” event where on one night alone more than two thousand rockets will be launched into the sky (Aillagon, 2008). This is the first display of feux d’artifices at Versailles (Masson, 2008) and rockets light up the night. They embodied more than their physical sparks of power from canons. In 17th century France, the understanding of feux d’artifice differs from the modern meaning of the phrase. The notion of fireworks are first explored through entries in Furetière’s “Dictionnaire Universel,” which acts more as an encyclopedia of what the phenomenon was a the time (1690a, 1690b). Through Furetière’s work, fireworks during this period were seen as literary, performative, militaristic, sensual, celebratory, and emotive, and innately tied to the French monarchy. From these definitions, the fireworks can then be situated within their historical context of the fireworks at Versailles at Louis XIV’s event. Fireworks at the festival are simultaneously considered at the time period for their physical, ephemeral nature and also for their metaphorically eternal nature. These understandings of fireworks and their place at the event in 1664 draws to the central aspect of the conceptualization of what fireworks meant at this time an place in history. The engraving of Jean Le Pautre in 1676 documented the fireworks and was entitled “Sixième Journée: Illuminations autour du grand canal de Versailles” (Schwartz, 2014, p. 44). This work serves as evidence of the historical and national memory consisted of in the mind of the public for centuries to come. At many times, fireworks can be seen as a metonym for the King. The French court had a “taste for light” which heightened the monarch’s ability to demonstrate his power in artistic and innovative means (Masson, 2008, p. 20). Just as the ephemeral blaze of the fireworks was fleeting, as was the life of the physical man who lived in the 17th century, so did the memory and metaphorical magnificent brilliance of the legend of the Sun King last long after his death on the eternal memory of history.

Louis XIV. was the most famous King of the Bourbon dynasty in France and his memory remains untouched mostly because of the Versailles palace. For it's construction as for any aspect of the king's representation the kingdom maintained various institutions and a flourishing society of artists who contributed in it. The present work treats some of the most remarkable parts of the building and links them to Louis' interest and intention concerning representation.

The Concert champêtre on the 1628 Joannes Ruckers harpsichord, a rare testimony of the painted corpus by Robert Bonnart (1652-1733)

Marie-Christine ANSELM

The Museum of the Château de Versailles nowadays preserves one of the most beautiful specimens of the European harpsichord making, the Joannes Ruckers 1628 harpsichord, built in Antwerp and rebuilt (ravalé) in Paris in 1706, probably by the harpsichord maker Nicolas Blanchet, and then adorned with a sumptuous  decor.
It is exemplary of the model that would become in France the nec plus ultra for the amateurs until the end of the Ancien Regime, at the end of a process of appropriation with musical, organological, decorative, economic implications, a most interesting phenomenon in the history of taste.
Attributed to the ornemaniste Claude III Audran, its  external decoration with grotesques on a gilded ground celebrates both music and love. The inner side of the  lid is decorated with a painting depicting an italianate landscape, animated by a Small Concert champêtre whose protagonists wear  costumes from the Commedia dell’arte, and whose author was remained unknown until now.
From the role of paintings in French harpsichord decoration, this article looks into the iconographic sources of this representation of music, and traces our investigation based on a signature fragment, detected in 2008 at the occasion of the restoration of the harpsichord by Alain Anselm.
At the end of these investigations, we propose the attribution, or rather the return of this painting to Robert Bonnart (1652-1733). Former  collaborator of Van der Meulen and then a peintre ordinaire du Roi, he is still best known nowadays for  his preparatory drawings for the engravings marketed by his brothers. This restitution de facto leads up to attribute to the same painter another painting of landscape, quite similar in its italianate design, its composition and its pictorial treatment, the Danse champêtre on the Joannes Couchet 1652 harpsichord. This other prestigious Flemish instrument, extended in 1701 and redecorated for financier Charles Malon de Bercy, now belongs to the collections of the Musée de la musique in Paris. In the light of documents and recent work on the Bonnart dynasty, we can thus give back to this multi-talented artist a specific mode of practice of landscape painting, as part of the harpsichord decorations.
Finally, our identification does not exclude the involvement, for the  idiosyncratic figures of this little  Fête galante before the letter, of a young painter named Antoine Watteau, Claude III Audran's collaborator.

This article is the first in a series dedicated to this harpsichord, which will follow Le décor du clavecin Joannes Ruckers 1628 du Château de Versailles, and Un clavecin chez les Romantiques: le peintre Joseph-Fernand Boissard (1813-1866) et son clavecin Joannes Ruckers 1628.

Il saggio indaga sui  progetti di architettura ideati da Bernini durante il suo soggiorno a Parigi presso Luigi XIV nel 1665, nei giorni della discussa elaborazione del Louvre. Numerose testimonianze ricordano come l'artista italiano assecondasse le richieste della regina madre, del fratello del re, di membri influenti della corte, come il ministro degli esteri, De Lionne, delineando numerose proposte, redatte con cura con il suo stile inconfondibile,  forme visivamente pregnanti, pensate sulla base di una attenta osservazione dei luoghi,  ideate genialmente per proporre immagini architettoniche  innovative. La realtà successiva al viaggio dell'artista è meticolosamente indagata per vedere quanto di queste proposte berniniane sia stato eventualmente realizzato, una ricerca appassionante e difficile per l'assenza di documenti grafici.

En el presente trabajo, El Universo de Luis XIV a través de la pintura y la moda, se pretende examinar la monarquía de Luis XIV por medio de una visión histórica de la indumentaria utilizada durante los años 1643 hasta 1715. El soberano se nos presenta preocupado por su imagen, ya que durante su vida se centró en desarrollar la apariencia de la corte real mediante la supremacía de las artes en Francia, en especial, la pintura. El Rey Sol es, por varias razones, objeto de estudio de la indumentaria francesa del siglo XVII, ya que potenció el mercado del diseño textil, hasta que el país se convirtió en referente para los demás países europeos. La corte versallesca desarrolló nuevas tendencias textiles como es el uso de ricos tejidos con diferentes tipos de brocados, la utilización de la casaca militar y un nuevo tipo de peinado impulsado por la Duquesa de Fontanges. En cuanto a la pintura refleja la aparatosidad y el artificio de la corte de Luis XIV mediante sus imponentes retratos. El monarca impulsó diversas reformas para convertir a Francia en un gran referente a nivel europeo, incluso mundial; para su consolidación se utilizó la imagen del Gran Luis como rey sagrado e invencible, la cual puede parecer una manifestación de megalomanía, pero la ciudad de París y la corte constituyeron el núcleo de la evolución arquitectónica que desembocó con la construcción del Palacio de Versalles. No obstante, Versalles es el símbolo de su propietario, una extensión de su personalidad, un medio para exhibir la imagen de la corte, además podemos decir que este gran complejo palaciego fue el escenario donde se vestían con suntuosos trajes y fue la máxima expresión de poder en torno a un soberano narcisista. Así pues, veremos que el Rey Sol demostró a partir de la indumentaria la influencia que poseía en otras cortes europeas, además de conseguir la valoración de la moda como símbolo de ostentación social y lujo en la Francia del siglo XVII.

Licencia Safe Creative. Registro de la Propiedad Intelectual.
©Sandra Antúnez López, 2017.

""Il contributo indaga l'eredità ideologica di Bisanzio negli Stati dell'età moderna e contemporanea. Naufragato il progetto – promosso da Bessarione e da Pio II e imperniato sulla figura di Tommaso Paleologo – di una rifondazione della basileia in Morea, secondo la nuova e ristretta formula statale ideata da Gemisto Pletone e dalla Scuola di Mistrà, e fallito con esso il piano di "salvataggio occidentale" del titulus costantiniano, il matrimonio – orchestrato da Bessarione – tra la figlia maggiore di Tommaso, Zoe Paleologina, e Ivan III di Russia segnò il passaggio dell'eredità propriamente dinastica dell'impero ortodosso da Bisanzio a Mosca, la Terza Roma; il che determinò una prima e quasi diretta assimilazione del suo lascito non solo culturale e ideologico (anzitutto la dottrina dell'autocrazia di diritto divino), ma anche politico-amministrativo (a partire dalla riorganizzazione, effettuata da Ivan IV, dell'amministrazione imperiale secondo i princìpi dello statalismo centralista bizantino) da parte dell’impero zarista. Un secolo dopo Ivan Groznij e molto più a occidente, nella Francia del XVII secolo, la riscoperta dell'eredità di Bisanzio negli studi e nella riflessione degli eruditi diede luogo a una riattualizzazione della basileia di diritto divino in quella figura di “re-sole” – eredità della monarchia ellenistica nell’ideologia politica bizantina dei primi secoli ma ancora riaffiorante in modo esplicito, al crepuscolo dell’impero, nei versi bessarionei dedicati a Manuele II Paleologo – che è posta ora al centro della moderna monarchia assoluta (la cui specifica teorizzazione sarà compiuta, a fine Seicento, da Jean Domat). Già all'epoca di Luigi XIV può dunque collocarsi la nascita della bizantinistica in Francia, con la prima opera di classificazione ed edizione delle fonti storiografiche bizantine (il «Corpus del Louvre») patrocinata da Colbert e con gli scritti e le riflessioni di Du Cange. La Francia del Seicento fu inoltre la prima, nell’Europa occidentale, a elaborare un'estetica bizantina, connessa alla grandeur della monarchia assoluta: nella ripresa della grande tradizione cerimoniale della corte costantinopolitana si espresse un vero e proprio transfert Costantinopoli-Versailles. All’inizio del XIX secolo, dopo il Congresso di Vienna, la fiaccola passò alla monarchia di una nazione in ascesa, la Prussia, e parallelamente il Corpus del Louvre trovò continuazione nel Corpus di Bonn. Ulteriori revival di Bisanzio scandiranno il secondo Ottocento europeo, tra Ludwig II di Baviera e Napoleone III, con sempre minore, tuttavia, vitalità politica, per arrivare a quella Francia fin-de-siècle, dove ogni genuina memoria della tradizione statale bizantina verrà obliterata o mistificata e si formerà l'immagine stereotipa di una Bisanzio come decadenza infinitamente protratta, vacuo regno di effeminati intrighi. Mai estinta invece nell’impero zarista, l’eredità bizantina troverà la più importante attualizzazione politica nel filobizantinismo dell’autocrate novecentesco Stalin, che promuoverà gli studi di bizantinistica ed esalterà il modello autocratico sussunto da Ivan Groznij; la concezione e l'estetica del potere bizantino vedranno così la loro più compiuta rielaborazione nell’opera cinematografica di Ejzenstejn (Ivan Groznij e Ivan Groznij II ovvero La congiura dei Boiari), dove la ricostruzione storica rivela allusioni contemporanee, omaggio e al contempo autenticamente bizantina Kaiserkritik al governo stalinista.

This contribution investigates the legacy of Byzantium in modern and contemporary nations. After the dual failure of the project - promoted by Bessarion and Pius II and planned around the figure of Thomas Palaeologos - to re-establish the basileia in Morea, according to the new concise formula created by Gemistus Pletho and the School of Mystras - and of the plan to save the titulus of Constantine in the West, the marriage orchestrated by Bessarion between Thomas’ eldest daughter Zoe Palaeologina and Ivan III of Russia marked the passing of the strictly dynastic legacy of the orthodox empire of Byzantium to Moscow, the third Rome. This determined a first and almost direct assimilation of Byzantium’s legacy – not only cultural and ideological (above all, the doctrine of divine right autocracy), but also political-administrative (starting from Ivan IV’s reorganisation of the imperial administration along the principles of Byzantium centralist statism) - by the Tsarist empire. A century after Ivan the Terrible and much further west in 17th century France, the rediscovery of the legacy of Byzantium in scholarly thought and erudition gave rise to a revival or “modernisation” of the divine right basileia in the figure of the “Sun King” – an inheritance of Hellenistic monarchy in the first centuries of Byzantine political ideology that was still emerging clearly when the empire was waning in Bessarion’s verses dedicated to Manuel II Palaeologos – now placed at the centre of modern absolute monarchy as Jean Domat would theorise succinctly at the end of the same century. Already at the time of Louis XIV, therefore, we can date the birth of Byzantine studies in France with the first work of classification and editing of Byzantine historiographical sources (the Louvre Corpus) financed by Colbert and with Du Cange’s writings and reflections. Furthermore, seventeenth century France was the first country in western Europe to develop a Byzantine aesthetic connected to the grandeur of absolute monarchy: an authentic Constantinople-Versailles transference found expression in the revival of the great tradition of Constantinopolitan court protocol. After the Congress of Vienna at the beginning of the 19th century, the torch passed to the monarchy of a nation on the rise, Prussia, and in parallel fashion, the Louvre Corpus found continuity in the Bonn Corpus. Further revivals of Byzantium would mark the second half of the 19th century in Europe - between Ludwig II of Bavaria and Napoleon III – with increasingly less political vitality until fin-de-siècle France when every authentic memory of the Byzantine statist tradition would be obliterated or mystified and the stereotyped image of Byzantium as cypher of protracted decadence and vacuous kingdom of effeminate intrigue would form. However, never extinct in the Tsarist empire, the Byzantine legacy would find its most important modern political realisation in the philo-Byzantinism of the twentieth century autocrat Joseph Stalin, who would promote Byzantine studies and exalt the autocratic model subsumed from Ivan Grozny. The Byzantine concept of power and aesthetics would thus see their most complete re-elaboration in the cinema of Eisenstein (Ivan the Terrible and Ivan the Terrible II: the Boyars’ Plot), in which the historical reconstruction contains contemporary allusions, a homage and, at the same time, an authentic Byzantine Kaiserkritik of the Stalinist government.
""

Тематичний збірник наукових праць (20 років Незалежності України). — К.: Такі справи. 2010. — 352 с. : іл. — ISBN 976-966-7206-65-3.

У збірнику вміщені наукові статті співробітників Національного музею історії України з питань історії України, досліджень музейних колекцій та окремих пам'яток із збірок музею.

Розрахована на істориків, археологів, краєзнавців, музейників, широкий загал шанувальників історії.

La présente étude traite de l’adaptation cinématographique d’Angélique marquise des Anges d’Anne et Serge Golon, qui a connu un grand succès en librairie. Classé comme roman populaire, le roman des Golon, qui a souvent été ignoré par la critique, est une oeuvre historiquement bien documentée. Adressée à un public essentiellement féminin, Angélique marquise des Anges, dont le casting réunissait des auteurs célébres, a été à l’origine de cinq films réalisés par Bernard Borderie, qui ont connu un succès commercial important. Après une courte présentation de l’oeuvre littéraire, nous analysons la personnalité et l’image de Louis XIV et de sa cour dans les cinq films. Vu l’étendue du roman fleuve, le scénariste et le producteur ont été obligés de rendre partiellement le caractère des personnages historiques ou même de les supprimer dans l’adaptation cinématographique. De plus, ils ont enlevé des descriptions et des passages importants réduisant ainsi les références chronologiques. En outre, quoique dans les romans des Golon,  l’image de la cour de Louis XIV soient représentée de manière réaliste, dans les films de Borderie, qui se focalisent sur les aventures amoureuses de l’héroine, malgré l’utilisation d’un décor naturel,  elle n’a pas été rendue de manière convaincante. Révélatrice des rapports complexes entre la littérature et le cinéma, l’adaptation cinématographique de la série d’Angélique, était, à l’exception du premier film de Borderie, une adaptation libre du roman, ce qui n’a pas nuit à son grand succès commercial.

In 1755, the Marquise de Pompadour commissioned a marble statue of Eros-Harpocrates, the right index finger resting on the lips, to decorate the hôtel d’Évreux, the future Palais de l’Élysée. This gesture of the little Horus, who is nothing else in Egypt than the simple sign of childhood, was the object of an interpretatio romana transforming the son of Isis and Osiris in a god of silence and mysteries. This interpretation had a long legacy, revived in the Renaissance and somehow consecrated by the work devoted to the god by the Dutchman Gisbert Cuper in 1676. Become a true allegory of political prudence and scientific or esoteric secrets, it is still Harpocrates who, today, stands at the entrance to the courtroom of the Palais du Luxembourg, seat of the Senate of the French Republic.

This essay forms part of a collective work that examines the history, evolution and usage of the domain of the Noailles family in Saint-Germain-en-Laye during the 18th century. The essay examines the role played by the landscape painter Hubert Robert (1733-1808) in the transformation of the vast gardens and the former picture gallery of this ducal residence. The gallery was transformed under Robert's guidance into a panoramic trompe-l'oeil representation of a landscape. The essay also looks at the links between this project for the Noailles and that of their kinsmen and political allies, the prince and princesse de Beauvau at their seat, the château du Val, whose gardens were also laid out by Robert.

Analysis of the painting Bacchante Playing the Tambourine by Alexandre Ubeleski (Ubelesqui) (ill. 1) within its proper cultural context should evoke the formal and iconographic models, i.e. the sculptures of the Versailles garden and the prints depicting them (ill. 6–14). The above models and the antique iconographic tradition of the Bacchanalia (ill. 4–5) allow, among other things, to identify the young man depicted in the painting as a satyr, while the earlier attribution saw him as a shepherd.
Analysis of the symbolism of the painting (ill. 1) and the preparatory drawing for it (ill. 3) reveals that the painting presents exquisite Bacchanalia, where natural instincts are subordinated to convention, while the erotic elements smuggled in under the cover of mythology are softened and balanced by the virtuous expression of the Bacchante and the satyr. Numerous contradictory yet complementary aspects (mythology - 17th-century French culture; eroticism typical of the Bacchanalia - a moralizing theme; allegory of the five senses - the genre character of an intimate garden concert) are merged in Alexandre Ubeleski’s painting into a single, semantically multifaceted and visually attractive composition.

Certes, le grand problème est bien là. Mais lorsque le prolétariat, et non pas la "foule", le Peuple, bougera sous l'impulsion des événements, il devra avoir à sa tête une cohorte internationale de fer, sans laquelle les défaites du passé - telle celle de la Commune - ne pourraient que se répéter. Alors seulement une victoire mondiale remportée par un état-major mondial pourra mettre fin à l'histoire douloureuse de la classe opprimée, en même temps qu’à la domination sanglante du Capital et, dans la perspective, au Léviathan de la société divisée en classes.

El Nuevo Olimpo fue una representación y mascarada en honor del cumpleaños de Mariana de Austria, sobrina de Felipe IV y su flamante nueva esposa. Con este matrimonio se debía obtener la descendencia que legitimaba al monarca, aunque ya tuviera éste una hija de su anterior esposa, María Teresa, con Isabel de Borbón. En 1665 muere el Rey y con la debilidad de su sucesor Carlos II, empieza un torneo político por establecer quién de sus dos hermanas podría ser la legítima heredera al trono español en caso de que éste muera repentinamente: su medio hermana María Teresa, entonces Reina de Francia, o su hermana natural Margarita Teresa, emperatriz del Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico. Una legitimidad que, además de librarse en conflictos europeos, lo hará también en una auténtica guerra fría a través de la imagen; la que proyectan personalmente las mismas soberanas mediante el vestido y su apariencia; y la que proyectan alegóricamente en conjunto con sus reales esposos a través de los grandes fastos y espectáculos de corte.

ABSTRACT
El Nuevo Olimpo was a representation and a masquerade ball in honour of Phillip IV’s niece and new spouse Mariana of Austria. This nuptial bond should result in a descendant that legitimates the monarch, although Phillip already had a daughter, Maria Theresa, from his former wife Isabel of France. In 1665, the king dies and due to the weakness of successor Charles II, a political tournament starts in order to establish which of the two daughters would be the legitimate heiress of the Spanish throne in case of repentant death. The two candidates were Charles II’s half-sister Maria Theresa, Queen of France at that moment; or his sister Margaret Theresa, empress of the Holy Roman Empire. This legitimacy, besides existing in European conflicts, will take part as well in a real cold war when it comes to image: The two queens will portray a physical image through her costumes and appearance and an allegorical image with their royal husbands through grandiose feasts and court spectacles.

Charles Le Brun (1619-1690), le Premier peintre de Louis XIV, est resté fameux pour ses grands décors de palais, en particulier, ceux qu’il conduisit à Versailles. Cet ouvrage, consacré à ses décorations de fêtes et de cérémonies, met en lumière une partie encore méconnue de son œuvre. Ces créations extraordinaires du Grand Siècle unissaient les arts dans de savantes mises en scène. Pendant quelques heures, les édifices ou les jardins se trouvaient métamorphosés grâce aux apparats conçus pour l’occasion, réunissant des peintures, des sculptures, des tapisseries ou de grandes structures, telles que des arcs de triomphe. Détruites à la fin des événements qu’elles accompagnaient, ces œuvres ont reçu peu d’attention jusqu’à présent. L’analyse des sources contemporaines et des images des décors permet de restituer ces ouvrages, mais également de les replacer dans leur contexte. La genèse de ces œuvres, leur conception et leur fabrication sont étudiées, redessinant les liens que Le Brun avait tissés avec les hommes d’État (le roi, Séguier, Fouquet et Colbert), avec les hommes de lettres, ainsi qu’avec ses principaux collaborateurs  notamment à la Manufacture des Gobelins. L’une des particularités de Le Brun dans ce domaine fut d’ordonner lui-même des fêtes et des cérémonies, ce qui constitue peut-être un cas unique pour un peintre à cette période. Ces œuvres oubliées complètent donc le portrait d’un des plus grands artistes français du XVIIe  siècle. Plus que tout autre ouvrage, les décorations ordonnées par Le Brun donnent l’image la plus juste de ses recherches et de ses goûts. Enfin, l’étude de ces célébrations et de leur réception offre une meilleure compréhension de ces créations exceptionnelles, tout en leur conférant la pérennité qu’elles méritent.

The legacy of Versailles is a rather well-defined and thoroughly researched area in the discipline of History. But what did the Treaty of Versailles and the events surrounding the peace conference give to the discipline of International Relations? In order to answer this question, the article first examines the place of Versailles in the foundational myths of the discipline. After that, in the second part, it briefly reviews the most persistent and influential ideas in IR which have emerged during the construction of the new world order of the time, putting a special emphasis on the concept of national self-determination as the “new master principle” of the international society after Versailles.

Alexandre Benois, the founder of The World of Art (Mir Iskusstva) movement, a brilliant graphic designer, a prominent art critic and historian renowned for his writings on art history , and a distinguished theatre artist who worked for Serge Diaghilev's Russian Seasons, was fascinated with Versailles. His passion lasted over thirty years and resulted in the Versailles (Versal') series that culminated in more than six hundred drawings, watercolors, pastels, gouaches, engravings and canvases created during two prolonged stays in France (1896-1899 and 1905-1907). Although the research on Benois's oeuvre has expanded during the last two decades, the majority of his works have yet to be interpreted. This article examines an unexplored aspect of Versailles, a distinctive Rococo-revivalist style which Benois assimilated in France. Examined through the prism of the Europeanization of Russian art, this article will explain Rococo revivalism of Versailles in a historico-cultural context.

Approche technique des fragments de décor découverts en 2017 sous l'appartement du Dauphin à Versailles. Cet article complète le précédent : Annick Heitzmann et Jean-Claude Le Guillou : "Vestiges découverts en 2017 sous les appartements du Dauphin et de la Dauphine au château de Versailles" (Versalia 23 p. 113-120). Il est donc recommandé de se procurer la revue.

Entre admiration et rejet : la perception de l’art français par les étrangers au tournant des xviie et xviiie siècles

Admiration and rejection: how French art was perceived by foreigners in the late 17th and early 18th centuries

Près de vingt ans avant la parution de ses Architectonische Reise-Anmerckungen, en 1719, le théoricien allemand de l’architecture Leonhard Christoph Sturm a édité un autre « guide » pour les voyages d’étude liés à la construction, qui a reçu comparativement bien moins d’attention de la part des chercheurs. Die zum Vergnügen der Reisenden Geöffnete Baumeister-Academie (première édition à Hambourg, 1700-1702) s’adresse au lecteur amateur, principalement au jeune noble, et constitue un résumé de son enseignement de professeur à l’académie de chevaliers de Wolfenbüttel. En s’appuyant sur ces éléments, cet article examine l’importance de Versailles parmi les bâtiments de référence que Sturm considère dignes d’être vus et étudiés, et les différences qui émergent de la comparaison avec les Architectonische Reise-Anmerckungen.

Almost two decades before his Architectonische Reise-Anmerckungen (Architectural Travel Notes), published in 1719, the German architectural theorist Leonhard Christoph Sturm published another ‘guide’ for construction-related travel studies, which, however, received far less attention in the relevant research. Die zum Vergnügen der Reisenden Geöffnete Baumeister-Academie (first edition, Hamburg, 1700/1702) is mainly addressed to the dilettante reader, primarily the young nobleman, and represents a summary of his teaching as professor at the Wolfenbüttel Ritterakademie. Based on this contextual background, the article examines the importance of Versailles in particular in Sturm’s canon of buildings worth seeing and studying, and the differences that become evident in comparison with the Architectonische Reise-Anmerckungen.