Archives de Tag: 16th century
Marie of Lorraine, the other Scottish Queen
Everyone knows of Mary, Queen of Scots: her tragic death, her real and imaginary lovers, the letters to her English cousin Queen Elizabeth I, her physical beauty and splendid black dowager gowns, her staunch catholicism. But there is another Mary, Queen of Scots, who also lived in the Sixteeenth century and who also greatly impacted […]
June 1538: Marie de Guise discovers Scottish fashion
After an exhausting sea crossing from France, Marie arrived on a sandy beach on the Scottish East coast near Crail. She was accompanied by the duke of Guise her father, her sister Louise, her ladies in waiting and many Frenchmen. All disembarked the galleys and moved towards castle Balcomie, probably passing fishermen, villagers and townspeople. […]
« 1515: Marignan! » – François Ier secoue la Bibliothèque Nationale
Cette grande exposition du printemps 2015 à la Bibliothèque Nationale de France à Paris s’annonce iconoclaste, et ça fait du bien. Le roi François Ier retrouvera enfin son époque, le Seizième siècle, débarrassé de 500 ans de broderies historisantes. Car la BnF, vénérable institution française, veut « revenir à la source des représentations de ce roi […]
16th century cloaks: Lord Seton’s red golden ‘mante’
George Seton was born in 1531 in Tranent, East Lothian. The Latin inscription from the wall of the Seton Collegiate Church in the Lothians states, that George had been living in France as a boy. After his father’s death in 1549, he returned to Scotland to become 5th Lord Seton. Soon afterwards, he was appointed […]
Mary and Darnley, the beautiful doomed couple
Like the J.F. Kennedy murder fifty years ago, we might never know with certainty who killed Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, the second husband of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, near Kirk o’Field house in Edinburgh in 1567. The latest exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, dedicated to the infortunate queen, didn’t bring […]
Charles de Lorraine, le cardinal bibliophile
Charles de Lorraine, second fils de la maison de Guise, depuis la mort de son oncle Jean en 1550 cardinal de Lorraine, commandait et collectionnait les ouvrages de prestige. De grands noms de la reliure, de l’enluminure et de la calligraphie travaillèrent pour lui. Plusieurs exemplaires somptueux de cet ensemble éclectique sont visibles dans une […]
Marie Stuart à Edimbourg (exposition au NMS en 2013)
On ne présente plus Marie Stuart, le monde entier la connaît. Vraiment ? Voici une belle occasion de se faire sa propre idée à propos de cette reine d’Écosse et de France, au moins aussi controversée que Marie-Antoinette. Les deux reines, adorées autant que détestées, soumises sans cesse aux regards et aux jugements de leurs […]
Scots ou Français – comment parlait Marie Stuart à sa mère ?
Une semaine après la naissance de sa fille au palais de Linlithgow le 8 décembre 1542, le roi d’Écosse meurt. Jacques V Stuart n’aura jamais vu sa fille Marie Stuart, seule héritière désormais, après la mort de ses deux frères en bas âge un an plus tôt. De sa famille ne reste à la petite […]
Renaissance living comfort
When nobility and royalty were travelling from palace to palace, tapestries, carpets and wooden furniture were taken along to furnish the various rooms. But how were these interiors made comfortable, and how their inhabitants were sheltered from the summer heat or winter cold ? Tapestries have been used not only as decoration and signs of […]
Marie de Guise-Lorraine 1515-2025 