CMEMS Workshop: Gerardo Tocchini
Speaker(s): Gerardo Tocchini (Venice-Ca’ Foscari University)
The King’s speech: Allegory, Opera and Political Communication at the Court of Versailles (Lully: “Phaëton”, 1683)
This talk aims to address the issue of political communication through allegorical language and the performing arts, in the areas of a royal court and in régime of absolute monarchy “de droit divin”. It focuses on the issue of the use of allegory in political communication in Europe during the ancient regime; in particular, it is intended to show how, under certain conditions, a tragédie en musique works as an unexpected, one-sided, skillful way of intimating to the court the one and only accredited version of a highly controversial political background that concerned the king's personal conduct. In this case, the legitimization of the batârds du roi. A major political issue that had stirred the factions of the French court, but on which it was a rule of prudence to maintain the strictest silence.
Gerardo Tocchini is Associate Professor in Modern History and in History of the Age of Enlightenment in Venice-Ca’ Foscari University, Dept. of Languages and Cultural Studies.
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