27:T4e8,

Seventeenth-century monarchy was performed, by ritual, by enactments, by sounds, and by visualizations. The crises of European monarchies of the 1620s and 1630s were met with splendid spectacles in which rulers and courtiers acted out idealized royal virtues and power. This article argues the case for the vital importance of music within these spectacles. Musical harmony was thought to mirror the harmony of the spheres, indicating God's plan for the universe. The ruler's ability to master or evoke musical harmony in aulic theatre could thus function as double representation of divine approval of his or her government. By comparing ballets and masques at the French Court of Louis XIII and the British Court of Charles I, music's centrality to political power in the performance of sacral kingship will be demonstrated. A focus on Britannia Triumphans (1638) and Merlaison (1635), works known for the extraordinary attention Charles I and respectively Louis XIII devoted to their performances, exemplifies how the handling of music offers valuable insights into the inner power structures of those courts. In both cases the musical performance was used to communicate and establish related political agendas.

28:T4c9,

The historiographical image of Anne of Cyprus (1418–1462), Duchess of Savoy, and her husband, Duke Louis of Savoy (1413–1465), is overwhelmingly negative. The couple undoubtedly encountered serious political difficulties during their reign, but the ‘black legend’ circulating about Anne and Louis since the seventeenth century appears far from justified. It originated with the so-called Chronica Latina Sabaudiae, a text completed shortly after 1487 and probably written by Étienne Morel (c. 1440–1499), a high-ranking cleric who was a supporter of the estranged son of Anne and Louis, Philippe of Savoy (1438–1497). Morel's narrative, its historical and literary context, and its reception in early-modern and modern historiography are examined against the background of contemporaneous Sabaudian and European politics. Morel's polemics seem inspired by the Commentarii genre of historiography cultivated by fifteenth-century humanists such as Enea Silvio Piccolomini. Both the genesis and the reception of Morel's text demonstrate the shifting but unshakeable alliance of historiography and dynastic politics, exemplifying historiography's role in the fabric of power.

29:T68b,