Contenu du sommaire : Le mécénat féminin en France et en Bourgogne XV-XVIe siècles. Nouvelles perspectives

Isabeau of Bavaria, Donation and the Politics of Patronage In contrast with the great princes of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century like Philip of Burgundy and Jean of Berry who are renowned as patrons of the arts, Queen of France Isabeau of Bavaria has often been dismissed as a frivolous and avaricious collector of jewels. This essay suggests that, far from being motivated by greed, Isabeau's patronage of gold work (orfèvrerie) must be regarded as above all political. Forced by the intermittent insanity of Charles VI from 1392 on to assume an important role in the government when the king was indisposed, she sought to reinforce her political influence by amassing a treasury that would allow her to participate in the circulation of gifts, a practice central to the exercise of political power at the Valois court.

Queen Marie of Anjou : Patron of the Works on the Château of Chinon in the Middle of the Fifteenth Century ? Marie of Anjou, the wife of Charles VII, has long been judged a timid queen with little ambition. However, the accounts of her Argenterie reveal that she played a role as managerial and as enterprising as her later counterpart, Queen Anne of Brittany. In 1454-55, with no less than 26,586 livres, Marie of Anjou paid a number of artisans for furnishing her apartments in the royal residence of Chinon. These apartments occupied a privileged position on the first floor of the castle, being on the same level as – and thus rivalling – those of Charles VII. In addition to her own apartments, the queen also had a great deal of work done in order to house members of her household, such as her official painter, Henri de Vulcop, as well as having work done on the gardens. From the moment she received the property of Chinon as part of her marriage dowry, the queen remained very attached to the castle and it became her preferred residence in the second half of the fifteenth century.

The Patronage of Mary of Burgundy : Between Private Devotion and Political Necessity The patronage of Mary of Burgundy is not, at first sight, an obvious subject of study : she has rarely been considered as a serious patron and when she has, she is described as a very modest one. This view would appear to be justified when we compare Mary's commissions with those of her ancestors, the dukes of Burgundy. However, although she added very few works to the enormous cultural heritage left to her by her ancestors, it is evident that the works she did commission expressed very clear political and cultural intentions on her part. “The greatest heiress in Europe” had to deal with attacks and intrigues from Louis XI as well as rioting from her own people right from the beginning of her unexpected rise to power in 1477. Acutely aware of the fact that she was the last descendant of the glorious house of Burgundy-Valois, as well as the weakness of her position as a woman, Mary sought suitable responses to the challenges she faced – not only military and diplomatic responses but also iconographical ones. Her desire to emphasise dynastic lineage, to create an image of a female sovereign that legitimized her succession and her power suo jure in order to assert her rights to Burgundian territories, as well as to impose her power on her uncontrollable subjects, all had a considerable influence on her resulting and carefully-considered cultural politics.

An Example of “Masculine” and “Feminine” in Patronage : The Commissioning Practices of Philippe de Gueldre (1467–1547) and Antoine de Lorraine (1489–1544) Around 1500, the court of the dukes of Lorraine was a space where artistic and cultural trends emanating from Burgundy, Flanders, France, Germany and Italy converged. Ducal patronage encompassed masculine as well as feminine concerns, and two figures held particularly important roles : Philippe of Guelders (1464–1547), duchess of Lorraine and, from 1519, Clarissan religious, and her son Antoine (1489–1544), duke of Lorraine from 1508. The patronage of Philippe of Guelders, both at court and in the convent, sought to legitimate a providentially-empowered principality while conferring a radiant profile on a woman groomed at the courts of France and Burgundy. When examined through a gendered lens, the patronage of the Lorraine can be seen to foster not only the cross-fertilizing of masculine and feminine patronage, but also their differentiation. This article seeks to show how the patronage of Philippe of Guelders, apparently distinct from that of her son, conceals in fact its continuity with that of Duke Antoine. In fact, the patronage of the duke was closely interwoven with that of his mother and, during the 1520s, they together contributed to the political, artistic, cultural and religious transformation of Lorraine, a region then fully engaged in the Renaissance and Reformation movements.

Jacquette de Montbron (1542–1598) : A Renaissance Female Architect Between Angoumois and Perigord Jacquette de Montbron (1542–1598), a favourite of Catherine de' Medici, is described by her brother-in-law the writer Brantôme, as an enlightened woman who had mastered the art of building, loving geometry and architecture, being a great expert and engineer of those arts. The particular intellectual environment in which Jacquette was brought up explains not only her unusual achievements, but also the decisions she made regarding her numerous possessions in Angoumois and Périgord. However, it is because of her role as a woman in the dissemination of Renaissance models and in the creation of technical and artistic projects that the complex and singular figure of Jacquette de Montbron deserves further attention. A player in the humanistic movement that was burgeoning in the provinces, and a notable patron of writers, Jaquette bears witness, amongst other things, to the ways in which female patronage could flourish and develop outside of the royal circle.

Poland : A Mother's Gift of Catherine de' Medici ? The Ceremony of presentation of the Decretum Electionis of Henry of Valois This article offers an interpretation of a splendid ceremony which took place at the French court in 1573 : a bestowal of the Decretum electionis, the decree of the election of Henry of Valois, the future Henry III of France, to the throne of the Polish-Lithuanian kingdom. Drawing on the full complement of French and Polish sources, this study situates the ceremony in its political, social and ritual context. In addition, it argues that Catherine de' Medici, the Queen Mother, ordered and displayed the elaborated decoration of the Decretum in white and green, her emblematic colours, as a way of presenting herself as a devoted mother, skilful politician and promoter of the Valois monarchy.

Female Patrons and Female Commissioners at the Heart of the French Renaissance This article proposes an overview of the patronage of some of the great ladies of rank who, at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries, gravitated around the fulcrum of power in France. “Honest” or “dishonest” (to use the terms then invoked), these women instigated an impressive number of recognized masterpieces in virtually every medium (painting, sculpture, architecture and more), from the Moulins Triptych, to the castle of Anet, to “the greatest building project of the sixteenth century”, the Tuileries. Moreover, a number of distinguished writings on architecture, including the Plus Excellents Bastiments de France by Du Cerceau, were directed at female dedicatees. In the manner of the works propelled by men, those created at the behest of women patrons prove to be inflected by power struggles, dynastic rivalries, political alliances, family ties and friendships ; however, the eyes of these “patronnes” were often riveted on the experiences and achievements of their female peers.

King Marsile's Chamber in Saragossa. A Study of a particular Evocation of Islamic Art (The Song of Roland, Stanza CLXXXVIII) The Saracen king's chamber is evoked in a few (difficult-to-translate) words. The Voltice, or dome, suggests the transition from earth to heaven and evokes the idea of the cosmos. Its decoration, mentioned very allusively, consists of chromatic saturation and ornamental writing. Whether exoticism or element of local color, such a feature could well have an ulterior motive, since in this case the enchanting writing is devoid of meaning.

The Literary Originality of the Moniage Rainouartin the Roman de Guillaume d'Orange This article attempts to define the literary originality of the Moniage Rainouart in the Roman de Guillaume d'Orange. The prose brings a calmer pace after the strict framework of the decasyllabic meter, which directed the expression of thought. The text is re-imagined, sometimes delicately, sometimes conspicuously : changes in the writing, in the conception of the characters. Shifts in meaning occur, blatant antagonisms are more reconciled, which does not remove the comedic, even satirical. Violent contrasts are toned down, the angular becomes more rounded. The desire to soften, to attenuate, is what best characterizes this re-writing : the result is greater sobriety and added nuance. The romance's atmosphere is influenced by the period of its creation and the personality of the narrator.