Financing Festivals, Music and Theatre: Real Expenses and Fictional Expenditures in France between the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

How were court and civic festivities funded in the early modern period?

This innovative, interdisciplinary project aims to shed light on an often disregarded aspect of the history of theatre and music: the economic realities of the production of public and private ceremonial and entertainment in early modern France.

Scholars have tended to examine multiple aspects of such festivities (their allegorical meanings, political function, the artists involved, the birth of new theatrical and musical genres, etc.), but there is still no specific, systematic research that has dealt with quantifying the expenditure on such ephemeral cultural activities that could themselves be the subject of both blame (as a wasteful use of time and money) and praise (propaganda in favour of the sovereign, the state, and civic communities).

The conventional view of festivities as a case of lavish conspicuous consumption is often supported by one set of sources reporting on it, such as printed descriptions, diary entries, letters, and so forth.

But the information contained within these documents is usually determined by their function (official propaganda) or its sources (hearsay and gossip).

Financial accounts of these festivities themselves, however, often present a different picture wherein expenses are carefully controlled and subject to prudent budget management.

The gap between these “real” expenses and “fictional” expenditures is akin to the gap between reality and theatrical illusion; it also forces consideration of the professional world of artists and artisans—and the opportunities available to them—who created these festivities under taut economic and other constraints.

The results of this pioneering survey, alongside with those already conducted by the ER on Florentine festival expenses, will make a further step towards a comprehensive study of the economics of spectacle at a transnational and european level.