Hôtel du Petit-Bourbon
48°51′34″N 2°20′23″E / 48.85950°N 2.33970°E
The Hôtel du Petit-Bourbon, a former Parisian town house of the
The Great Hall, the Grande Salle du Petit-Bourbon, was larger than any room in the Louvre, and served as the first theatre of the
History
When in the fourteenth century the kings of France began to use the Louvre as their primary Paris residence,
According to Henri Sauval, from 1303 to 1404 the Bourbons purchased houses of more than 300 persons to assemble the site on which their new hotel was built. Over the years they augmented and embellished it such that it became one of the most magnificent in the kingdom.[4] Sauval describes the great hall and the chapel (which both still existed at the time he was writing), as the largest and most sumptuous of their kind in Paris.[5]
In 1523 Charles III, Duke of Bourbon, who was Constable of France at the time, plotted to partition France against the will of King Francis I. When the plot was uncovered, Charles was forced to flee to Italy, and as a result the Hôtel de Bourbon was partly demolished. "Salt was strewed upon the ground which it occupied; the armorial ensigns of the offender were effaced, and the windows and doors that remained were smeared by the executioner with yellow ochre."[6]
The Grande Salle
The Great Hall (French: Grande Salle) was used for numerous court functions.
The Ballet Comique de la Reine, regarded by James R. Anthony as the first true ballet de cour, was performed at the Petit-Bourbon on 15 October 1581, during the festivities surrounding the marriage of the Duke de Joyeuse and the queen's sister, Marguerite de Vaudemont.[8] The French court's first great carousel (a type of tourney performed as a ballet) was held in the Grande Salle in February 1605.[9] The Estates General of 1614 and 1615 and some of the celebrations accompanying the marriage of Louis XIII in 1615 were also held there.[3]
Louis XIII selected the subject for the ballet de cour La délivrance de Renaud, based on the story of Rinaldo in Tasso's popular 1581 epic poem
The dimensions of the hall were ample by Parisian standards: 15 meters wide and 35 meters long with an apse adding an additional 13.5 meters at one end. During the Estates General of 1614, the king and his courtiers sat in the apse, which was decorated with fleur-de-lis.[12] Lawrenson suggests that on some occasions, such as the Ballet Comique de la Reine, a kind of stage was located in the apse.[13] The general public was accommodated in two tiers of balconies on the walls.[14]
La finta pazza, an Italian play by Giulio Strozzi mixed with an opera by Francesco Sacrati was given under the auspices of Cardinal Mazarin in December 1645. The production employed elaborate stage scenery with set changes and special effects accomplished via theatre machines designed by Giacomo Torelli.[15]
In February 1650, during the
Mazarin's triumph over the Frondeurs and return from exile was celebrated with the
The Petit-Bourbon on old maps of Paris
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ca. 1550 (Truschet & Hoyau)
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ca. 1550 (Saint Victor)
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1609 (Quesnel)
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1615 (Mérian)
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1652 (Gomboust)
Notes
- ^ The street no longer exists. Galignani 1825, vol. 2, p. 191, calls it the rue d'Autriche. Other sources, e.g., Félibien 1725, p. 130, refer to it as the rue de l'Autruche.
- Louis de Bourbon, Duke of Montpensier, and was also located on a street named rue du Petit-Bourbon (see Galignani 1825, vol. 2, p. 190, and Hare 1888, p. 406). The former rue du Petit-Bourbon near Saint-Sulpice is now the portion of the rue Saint-Sulpice which runs between the rue de Tournon and the rue Garancière and can be found on the full 1652 Gomboust map.
- ^ a b Galignani 1825, vol.2, pp. 190–192.
- ^ Sauval 1724, vol 2., p. 114.
- ^ Sauval 1724, vol. 2, pp. 208–211.
- ^ Galignani 1825, vol. 2, p. 191.
- ^ Isherwood 1973, p. 60.
- ^ Anthony 2001. Marguerite de Vaudemont, also known as Marguerite of Lorraine, was the queen's half-sister, daughter of the queen's father Nicolas, Duke of Mercœur, and his second wife, Joanna of Savoy.
- ^ Isherwood 1973, p. 95; Timms 2001.
- ^ Anthony 1997, pp. 46–47.
- ^ Discours au vray du ballet dansé par le roy, le dimanche XXIXe jour de janvier M. VIc. XVII, p. 3; cited and quoted by Anthony 1997, p. 49.
- ^ Bjurström 1962, p. 122.
- ^ Lawrenson 1986, p. 188.
- ^ Bjurström 1962, p. 123.
- ^ Bjurström 1962, pp. 122, 134–133; Howarth 1997, p. 204.
- ^ Bjurström 1962, p. 147; Howarth 1997, p. 205.
- ^ Isherwood 1973, pp. 136–138.
- ^ Isherwood 1973, pp. 129–130; Bjurström 1962, pp. 128, 160–176.
Bibliography
- Anthony, James R. (2001). "Ballet de cour" in Sadie 2001. Also at Oxford Music Online (subscription required).
- Bjurström, Per (1962). Giacomo Torelli and Baroque Stage Design, 2nd revised edition, translated from the Swedish. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. OCLC 10226792.
- Félibien, Michel (1725). Histoire de la ville de Paris, vol. 4. Paris: Guillaume Desprez; Jean Desessartz. View at Google Books.
- Galignani, A.; Galignani, W., publishers (1825). The History of Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day, 3 volumes. Paris: A. and W. Galignani. Vols. 1 (2nd ed., 1832), 2 (1825), and 3 (1825) at Google Books.
- Hare, Augustus J.C. (1888). Walks in Paris. New York: George Routledge and Sons. View at Google Books.
- Howarth, William D., editor (1997). French Theatre in the Neo-classical Era, 1550–1789. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521100878.
- Isherwood, Robert M. (1973). Music in the Service of the King. France in the Seventeenth Century. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ISBN 9780801407345.
- Lawrenson, T. E. (1986). The French Stage and Playhouse in the XVIIth Century: A Study in the Advent of the Italian Order, second edition, revised and enlarged. New York: AMS Press. ISBN 9780404617219.
- ISBN 9781561592395(hardcover). OCLC 419285866 (eBook).
- Sauval, Henri (1724). Histoire et recherches des antiquite's de la ville de Paris, 3 volumes. Paris: Charles Moette; Jacques Chardon. Vols. 1, 2 and 3 (copies 1 and 2) at Google Books.
- Timms, Colin (2001). "Tourney" in Sadie 2001. Also at Oxford Music Online (subscription required).