Adorning the Prince and his Palace in Fifteenth Century Italy: Seeing, Admiration and Authority

De Raedt, Nele [UCL]

This contribution explores a number of mirrors of princes, written during the second half of the fifteenth century in Italy, and the prescriptions their authors provided for the adornment of the prince’s body in relation to contemporary models on human understanding, emotions and their effect. My text argues that admiration in specific was understood to create powerful emotional effects as it related to both positive feelings of praise and reverence, and negative feelings of estrangement and fear. This double effect of admiration as something that simultaneously attracts and creates distance is especially discernible in contemporary discussions on the exterior ornamentation to be provided for the ruler’s palace. This ornamentation needed to evoke admiration in the beholder, as well as associations with wealth, power, virility and strength in order to create praise and reverence towards the prince, while also keeping his subjects at a distance from the ruler’s physical body. Because of its ornamentation, the palace could also function as a portrait of the prince and create a stable and continuous visual presence of the ruler, even in his absence. Architectural ornamentation could perpetuate the emotional effect of seeing the prince through time and space.