Introduction: Women, Entertainment, and Precursors of the French Salon , 1532–1615

Summary

Abstract: Italianate artifacts of conversation and literary game-playing in sixteenth-century France foreshadow those of seventeenth-century salon culture. They do so despite anti-Italianism that arose during the earlier period and the later view that salon entertainment originated primarily in the hôtel de Rambouillet. Examining the critical context of social practices in these periods shows that the activities of largely women-led circles in the sixteenth century illustrate the complex precursors of the seventeenth-century groups. Johan Huizinga and Eugen Fink provide a theoretical path across these periods indicating how the ludic activities in the sixteenth century produced influences that would shape attitudes and activities of salon culture to come. Estienne Pasquier illustrates practices of sixteenth-century literary society that spilled over into the seventeenth century.

Key Words: games and play, entertainment, women, sixteenth century, periodization, networks

During this time, not only were the customary amusements and entertainments continued in the usual style, but everyone did his best to contribute something more, and especially in the games that were played nearly every evening.

— Baldesare Castiglione

The circle of lovers of Tasso's pastoral drama may be extended to include Claude Catherine de Clermont, maréschale de Retz.… Closely linked to Marguerite de Valois and the duchesse de Nevers [Henriette de Cléves], the maréschale held a prestigious literary salon, often frequented by both princesses: this little circle probably was entertained by readings and performances of these now fashionable pieces, the pastoral and the tragi-comedy.

—Aurore Evain

Finally, we have all understood that the rupture between the century of Francois I and the century of Louis XIV does not exist.

— Franco Simone

Culture arises in the form of play.

— Johan Huizinga

In her little-known work L’Histoire de La Chiaramonte (1603), dedicated to Marguerite de Valois (1553–1615), the author and fille d’honneur Marie de Beaulieu (before 1563–after 1603), includes a poem composed of lines from Petrarch's Canzoniere that she translates into French:

Sono un deserto, e fere aspre, e seluage,

Vivendo, e lagrimando impari,

Come nulla qua qui diletta, e dura

Prego che’l piante mia finisca morite,

Che mia virtu non può contra l’affanno,

E cieca al suo morir l’alma consente.