BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE

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French

     Blaise de Vigenère (1523-1596) is especially celebrated as a translator and commentator of several prose writers of antiquity. We owe him especially the Images ou tableaux de platte-peinture, an annotated translation of the Images by Philostratus, well known by historians of art. He wrote all his works during a studious retirement starting in 1570. But previously he used all his negotium as diplomatic secretary, in service to the house of Nevers. This house was linked to the dukes of Mantua since the marriage, in 1566, of Henriette de Clèves, the last heir of the counts of Nevers and Louis de Gonzague, the third son of duke Frédéric de Mantua. On the demand of Louis de Gonzague, who had become duke of Nevers through this alliance and faithful servant of Henri III, he undertook to write La somptueuse et magnifique entrée.
La somptueuse et magnifique entrée du roi Henri III en la cite de Mantoue… is the first book Vigenère published; firstly, it was commissioned on the occasion of this particular event. When Charles IX died, his brother Henri, elected one year earlier king of Poland, became heir to the French throne and returned to Paris to take possession of his new kingdom. La somptueuse et magnifique entrée relates the stop on this return trip made in Mantua on August 2 and 3, 1574. The account was written afterwards, and Vigenère, composing his book from Italian sources, was not an eye witness to the events. But he was well acquainted with Mantua, for having visited it during one of his two long diplomatic stays in Italy during the 1550s.
Thus Vigenère undertakes to recount the festivities given on the occasion of the royal entry and explains that the lateness of the publication was due to the amount of time necessary to reproduce the decorations exactly. Firstly, his register responds to political imperatives: it is a matter of recalling the new king's political program and the links which unite him to the house of Mantua through the description of the scenery. Henri III's route through the city is marked by several gates and triumphal arches decorated with allegorical figures and mottoes celebrating the new king and his exploits, with the hyperbole inherent to royal entries. Do the engravings and the mottoes of the register reproduce the scenery of the festivities exactly? It has been shown that they were the subject, for publication, of a few touchups dictated by the French religious and political context of the moment and that they draw up a coherent political program, reconciling a desire for appeasement and firmness facing the Protestant party.
But Vigenère's register also has an obvious artistic interest. No doubt the Mantua festivities were less sumptuous than those of Venice or Ferrara. Thus, in order to increase the prestige of the ducal city, Vigenère undertakes to praise the artistic riches of Mantua through the description of the itinerary followed by the royal procession. Undertaken urgently, so sudden was the announcement of the king's arrival, the preparations for the festivity were no less impeccable, he says, thanks to the quality of the Mantua artists.
Henri III arrived, then, at Mantua on August 2, 1574, “sur les trois heures du soir”. The king's establishment at the Palazzo Te acted as a pretext to evoke the main curiosities of the building: the Sala dei Cavalli, the paintings and the stucco decorations and the Sala dei Giganti with its acoustics. The entrance into the city, the Porta Posterla, was the occasion to mention Mantegna's Trionfi di Cesare in the Palazzo San Sebastiano (twelve paintings, acording to Vigenère, which is difficult to understand). Further, the arrival at the Church of Sant'Andrea, designed by Alberti, was useful to recall the exceptional dimensions of its vault. Vigenère also insists on the richness of the collections in the ducal palace and mentions the villa of Marmirolo at the end of the register. Henri III went there during the afternoon of August 3.
But the Entrée à Mantoue is especially interesting to the historian of architecture by the technical precision of the descriptions and the engravings of the festive scenery. The work includes eight full- page wood engravings representing the scenery of the festivity: “arcs triomphaux, portes, statues et autres belles fantaisies, et inventions”. The entry into the city of Mantua comes after the account of the ceremonies at the Palazzo del Te. The booklet takes care to describe, with the help of engravings, the festival scenery. Generally speaking, it is not difficult to reconstruct the itinerary of the royal cortege despite a few small doubts. Leaving the Palazzo Te, the procession crossed a defensive ring (filled in today) in order to enter the city through the Porta Posterla, then crossed Mantua from the south to the north on the main street (San Silvestro) to the Basilica of Sant'Andrea. Then it went through the Porta Garda to arrive at the piazza San Pietro (today Piazza Sordello). After crossing the piazza, it went to the cathedral, then to the ducal palace across the way.
The first engraving reproduces the two statues of Mars and Manto, in front of the bridge crossing the circular defensive ring, at the exit of the Palazzo Te. The first gate decorated with allegorical figures is at the other end of the bridge. Seen easily in the background of the first engraving, it is the main subject of the second (p. 19). But here the text does not correspond to the engraving: according to the text, the gate should be before the bridge (“au milieu de ces deux statues”) writes Vigenère, and not beyond it. The third and fourth engravings (p. 27 and 28) represent the arch in San Silvestro Street decorated with allegorical figures, one showing the arch from the front, the other showing side niches. The fifth (p. 33) represents the Porta Garda with an allegorical decoration devoted to the labours of Hercules. The sixth, seventh and eighth engravings (p. 40, 42, 45) relate to the decoration of the ducal palace: an arch erected at the entrance of the courtyard dominated by the shield bearing the coat of arms of France, a bronze statue of Ocno, the legendary founder of the city of Mantua, in the courtyard and lastly a triumphal arch at the entrance of the palace.
La somptueuse et magnifique entrée is very interesting evidence of the spread of architectural vocabulary. The abundance and precision of technical terms are proofs that Vigenère’s knowledge was accurate. Architectural terms return frequently and show the progressive “naturalization” of a vocabulary that was not yet well known.

Richard Crescenzo (Université de Bourgogne) – 2007

Critical bibliography

Blaise de Vigenère. La renaissance du regard, Anthologie présentée et annotée par R.Crescenzo, Paris, Ensba, 1999.

Blaise de Vigenère, poète et mythographe au temps de Henri III, Cahiers V.-L. Saulnier, 11, Paris, PENS, 1994.

J.-F. Maillard, "De la maquette autographe à l’imprimé : la Somptueuse et magnifique Entrée du roi Henri III à Mantoue par Blaise de Vigenère (1576)", P. Aquilon, H.-J. Martin & F. Dupuignet Desrousilles (ed.), Le livre dans l’Europe de la Renaissance, Paris, Promodis, 1988, pp. 73-90.

D. Métral, Blaise de Vigenère archéologue et critique d’art, Paris, Droz, 1938.

P. de Nolhac & A. Solerti, Il viaggio in Italia di Enrico III re di Francia e le feste a Venezia, Ferrara, Mantova e Torino, Rome/Turin/Naples, Roux e C. editori, 1890.