Imperial Festivities in Hainaut, 1549
Mons, Belgium, October 12 – 13, 2015
Registration deadline: Oct 11, 2015
Set within a week of celebrations featuring the work of Jacques Du Broeucq (c.1505-84) as architect and sculptor (11-18 October) and following a week (4-11 October) celebrating the musical achievements of Orlando di Lasso/Roland de Lassus (1532-94), the aim of the conference is to bring to widespread public notice a famed series of occasions. As the hub of Renaissance Europe, the Low Countries commanded the continent’s attention, with Hainaut and its capital Mons featuring as the site of the most famous and influential events.These took place in 1549 when Charles V, Count of Hainaut and Holy Roman Emperor, attempted to determine the continent’s dynastic, political and economic future by nominating as his successor his son Philip of Spain. With this aim in mind, Charles’s sister Mary of Hungary commissioned a series of magnificent festivals, the most lavish of which took place in August of that year at her palaces close to Mons at Binche and Mariemont.
These outshone the festivals of contemporary France and arguably equalled the great royal and civic festivals of Italy and the
German-speaking states. Attention will be drawn to the public processions organised by local officials, and engaged in by a high proportion of the whole populace, from tradesmen and civic officers to artists, choreographers, designers and musicians. Particular attention will be paid to tournaments, including the great tournament of the Château Ténébreux, and to their wide-ranging public appeal. Attention will also be given to the festivals’ appropriation of Italian and Burgundian or Northern European precedents, and to their continent-wide public recognition, as attested by the survival of an unusually high number of published accounts in Spanish, French, German and Italian.
Sunday 11 October 2015, Château de Boussu
Individual arrival, banquet and opening celebrations
Monday 12 October 2015, Université de Mons, Auditorium La Piscine, chemin du Champ de Mars, Mons
10.00 Session I, Chair: Krista De Jonge
– Hugo Soly, Vrije Universiteit Brussel: “1549: A Year of Grace for Emperor Charles V and his Subjects in the Low Countries”
– Mía Rodríguez-Salgado, London School of Economics and Political Science: “The Magnificent Festivals of 1549 as Part of Charles V’s Political, Dynastic and Personal Strategies”
– Ronnie Mulryne, University of Warwick: “The Emperor’s Two Bodies: Charles V and the Representation of Self in 1549”
12.20 Reception and Lunch
14.00 Session II, Chair: Margaret Shewring
– Krista de Jonge,University of Leuven: “Du ‘palais royal’ au ‘château enchanté’: l’architecture de Marie de Hongrie à Binche et à Mariemont comme décor de fête permanent”
– Margaret M. McGowan, University of Sussex: “La mascarade à Binche: nouveauté ou fête traditionnelle?”
– Jessie Park, University of Arizona: “The Seven Deadly Sins Tapestries, the Masque and Habsburg Propaganda, Binche 1549”
Coffee break
16.30 Session III, Chair: Marie-Claude Canova-Green, Goldsmiths, University of London
– Sydney Anglo, University of Wales: “The Tournaments at Binche: the sources and their European implications”
– Tobias Capwell, The Wallace Collection, London: “The Real Armour of a Chivalric Fantasy: Combat Forms and Equipment at the Courtly Spectacle held at Binche, August 1549”
– Mario Damen, Universiteit van Amsterdam: “Tournament Culture in the Habsburg Low Countries around 1550”
19.00 Visit of Sainte-Waudru
Tuesday 13 October 2015, Université de Mons, Auditorium La Piscine, chemin du Champ de Mars, Mons
10.00 Session IV, Chair: Ronnie Mulryne
– Francesca Bortoletti, University of Leeds: “The Triumphal Entry of the Future Philip II into Milan”
– Yves Pauwels, Centre d’Etudes supérieures de la Renaissance, Tours: “Les Arcus triumphales quinque de Gand en 1549: histoire, architecture et célébration monarchique”
– Stijn Bussels, University of Leiden: “The Importance of Being Present: the Festivities for Prince Philip in Antwerp and Binche”
12.00 Lunch
13.15 Session V, Chair: Mía Rodríguez-Salgado
– Félix Labrador Arroyo & José Eloy Hortal Muñoz, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos/IULCE, Madrid: “The Ceremonial Offices of the Entourages of Charles V and the Future Philip II during the ‘Felicissimo Viaje’: Burgundian Etiquette?”
– Renate Holzschuh-Hofer: Bundesdenkmalamt, Wien: “Imperial Brothers 1549-1552: The Impact of Charles V’s ‘Spanish Succession’ on the Austrian Line of the Habsburg Dynasty and the Court of Ferdinand I”
– Richard Morris, Trinity College, Cambridge: “Fashioning Identities in Habsburg-Ruled Lands: the 1568 Wedding of Wilhelm V, Duke of Bavaria, and Renée, Duchess of Lorraine”
Coffee break
15.45 Session VI, Chair: Margaret M. McGowan
– Margaret Shewring, University of Warwick: “Festival and the Languages of Performance”
– Lisa Wiersma, Universiteit van Amsterdam / Webster University Leiden: “Ephemeral Art as a Daily Practice”
– Camilla Cavicchi, Centre d’Études Supérieures de la Renaissance, Tours: “Mary of Hungary and Music, Binche, August 1549”
17.45 Conclusions
Wednesday 14 October 2015
Optional excursion to Saint-Omer (sculpture and architecture of the 16th and 17th centuries, including work by Jacques Du Broeucq)
Full programme and free but compulsory registration,
http://www.mons2015.eu/fr/
Further information : The Low Countries Sculpture Society, info@lcsculpture.org
Lecturer, Ph.D. Position/Assistantship, and Postdoctoral Fellowship in Urban Studies
Urban Studies at the University of Basel is rooted in disciplinary approaches of architecture, geography, anthropology, social and political theory, and history, and oriented towards global Southern and postcolonial questions. With a regional focus on Africa, Europe,...