SUPERMEN IN CHATEAUX AND CHURCHES

CHATEAUX DECOR EVOKES THE PRIVATE LIVES OF OWNERS AS IF THEY WERE GODS, AND LINKS THEM WITH THE KINGS

Take mantelpieces, the most prestigious sites of glacial halls:

• At Écouen* Jacob sins, leaves, returns and is forgiven, like the owner** who offends Diane de Poitiers, leaves the court and eventually reconciles with the king.

*The Renaissance Museum, north of Paris

**The Constable of Montmorency (1493-1567) 

Esau's hunt, museum publication

 

• At Condé en Brie in Champagne a god carries off a woman. It alludes to the owner* making a married woman his mistress as Louis XIV had done with Madame de Montespan, and imitates a statue at Versailles.

*The Marquis de la Faye, private secretary to Louis XIV

Claude Abron

Château de Condé - Aymeri de Rochefort; Pluto Carries off Prosperine by François Girardon, toward 1690, Versailles / zoom

That mistress, the marquise de Montespan — the one suspected of black masses — chose the story of Helen of Troy as decor for her chateau.

-- Athénaïs, the Real Queen of France by Lisa Hilton, 2002

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The upper clergy, composed of nobles, gave the poor the appearance of gods. Compare:

Eleventh century

Zoom

 Sixteenth century

Zoom

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The most important use of mythology and allegory

is Rubens's celebration of queen Marie de Medici

for her palace.

The 24 life-size paintings are now at the Louvre.

The first modern biography 

uses allegory and mythology to tell her story.

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Next,
A queen's apotheosis