Rubens's Life of Maria de' Medici: Dissimulation and the politics of art in early seventeenth-century France
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2014-01-01
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The Life of Maria de' Medici, the biographical series of twenty-four large-size paintings executed for the Queen Mother of France by Peter Paul Rubens in 1622 -25, is traditionally regarded by historians as both a masterpiece of Baroque art and a monument of political naïveté. According to this view, the series was a disrespectful visual bravado that exposed both patron and painter to scandal by publicly advertising the queen's political ideas and ambitions, which were not only audacious, but often in opposition to those of her son King Louis XIII. This article challenges this assessment by reading the Life within the context of seventeenth-century uses of dissimulation and spatial control as strategies to limit both intellectual and physical access to information. It argues that the series was imbued with multiple layers of meaning, intended for different audiences, and that access to these was strictly controlled by the queen and her circle.
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Galletti, S (2014). Rubens's Life of Maria de' Medici: Dissimulation and the politics of art in early seventeenth-century France. Renaissance Quarterly, 67(3). pp. 878–916. 10.1086/678777 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/14121.
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Sara Galletti
I hold an M.Arch from the Università IUAV di Venezia (1999) and a Ph.D. in the History of Architecture and Urbanism from the Sorbonne Université-Paris IV and IUAV (joint program, 2004). I have held postdoctoral and research positions at Harvard University, 2002–04; Villa I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, 2005–06 and 2007-09; and the Institut national d'histoire de l'art (INHA), 2017. In 2022–23, I was a visiting professor at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL).
My research focuses on the history and theory of architecture and urbanism in early modern Europe and the premodern Mediterranean. I have published on the production and reception of architectural knowledge and models, early modern architectural treatises, women’s patronage, the history of stereotomy, and urban history.
I am the author of Le Palais du Luxembourg de Marie de Médicis, 1611-1631 (Paris: Picard, 2012), “Philibert de l’Orme’s Divine Proportions and the Composition of the Premier tome de l’architecture” (Architectural Histories 2, no. 1, 2014), “Rubens’s Life of Maria de’ Medici: Dissimulation and the Politics of Art in Early Seventeenth-Century France” (Renaissance Quarterly 67, no. 3, 2014); and “Female Agency and Early Modern Urbanism: the Paris of Maria de’ Medici” (Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 71, no. 2, 2012).
I am currently working on a book project funded by a 2021–22 NEH grant tentatively titled History of Stone Vaulting in the Pre-Modern Mediterranean: Practices, Theories, and Patterns of Knowledge Transfer. My articles related to this project include “Épures d’architecture: geometric constructions for vault building in Philibert de L’Orme’s Premier tome de l’architecture (1567)” (Opus Incertum 6, 2020), “From Stone to Paper: Philibert de L’Orme, the Premier tome de l’architecture (1567), the Birth of Stereotomic Theory” (Aedificare: International Journal of Construction History 2, no. 2, 2018), and “Stereotomy and the Mediterranean: Notes Toward an Architectural History” (Mediterranea. International Journal on the Transfer of Knowledge, no. 2, 2017).
I am also researching two other book-length projects: Practice into Theory: Philibert de L'Orme, the Premier tome de l'architecture (1567), and The Profession of Architecture in Early Modern France and Paris of Waters. Practice into Theory examines Philibert de L'Orme's treatise in the context of architectural production and discourse in late medieval and early modern France, with a particular focus on the professionalization of architects. Materials based on this project have been published in “Philibert de L’Orme’s Dome in the Chapel of the Château d’Anet: The Role of Stereotomy” (Architectural History 64, 2021). Paris of Waters focuses on the impact of water on the demographic, social, architectural, and urban development of the city of Paris in the early modern period. It looks at water in a variety of forms—as a resource, a commodity, a means of transportation, a funnel for the city’s waste, and a cause of disaster and death—and makes water visible as a powerful agent of urban transformation.
I welcome applications to the Ph.D. program from any student with an interest in early modern architecture in Europe and/or the Mediterranean.
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