Ducal display and the contested use of space in late sixteenth-century Venetian coronation festivals

This chapter focuses on the festivities organised for the coronation of Doge Marino Grimani in 1595 and the festival organised for his wife’s symbolic entrance to the Ducal Palace in 1597. The festival for the dogaressa was a sumptuous three-day affair. A publicity campaign consisting of pamphlets, festival books, engravings and paintings made sure contemporaries took notice, as present-day scholars have done. Undeniably, the ducal couple used the festival to flaunt their ambitions with an audience of fellow patricians in mind. This chapter argues, however, that the festivities also contained a message explicitly directed at the thousands of spectators who were not part of Venice’s political or cultural elite. This particular message ran counter to the Venetian Republic’s ideal of political and social relations. By combining well-known pamphlets and festival books with hitherto neglected financial records and (ephemeral) architecture, the chapter analyses the social and political implications of the interplay between sixteenth-century ducal display and the use of Venetian space.