The Queen's Library: Image-Making at the Court of Anne of Brittany, 1477-1514

Chapter Two. Female Patronage and the Politics of Personification Allegory

c h a p t e r t w o Female Patronage and the Politics of Personification Allegory Expanding upon the historical reconstruction of women in entry performances , which we examined in Chapter 1, this chapter explores the dynamics of female patronage relationships, which involved the praise of a feminine benefactor by male authors and artists, through an analysis of the literary and iconographic reconstruction of women in allegorical works. Anne of Brittany, one of the most prominent patrons of the arts during her lifetime, and her support of numerous court protégés figure centrally in this discussion . The French queen’s secondary textual and iconographical role in André de la Vigne’s Ressource de la Chrestienté (1494) typifies her presence in books associated with her queenship during Charles VIII’s reign.1 And yet, the author’s use of female personification allegory2 in the Ressource anticipates his portrayal of the French queen ten years later in his account of her coronation and Parisian entry in 1504, analyzed in Chapter 1. Thus, the allegorical portrayal of political entities during Anne of Brittany’s first reign ultimately foreshadows a real-time political representation of the queen during her second reign. Anne’s more prominent profile in books dating from her second marriage—images of the queen alone appear more frequently—may well reflect her increased political authority as administrator of Brittany, a role her first husband had assumed. The French queen’s greater maturity and increased economic status further enabled her to commission more of her own books at the time of her marriage to Louis XII, as Maulde La Clavière confirms: 64 chapter two La reine Anne de Bretagne usait royalement des gros revenues de son duché personnel et de son douaire; et, comme elle ne redoutait point le luxe ni la flatterie, les lettres, l’art, les industries artistiques trouvèrent auprès d’elle un accueil sans rival. Quant au roi, il dépensait moins largement, parce qu’il se considérait comme un économe du denier populaire, mais il encouragea spécialement l’histoire, qu’il s’agît d’histoire ancienne ou moderne, des origines fabuleuses de la dynastie ou des faits contemporains.3 Indeed, court artists often dedicated works to the queen that glorified her husband’s exploits. While such tributes to the king obviously honored Anne as well through association, these authors also seemed to be targeting King Louis XII—as both potential audience and patron—through the queen. For example, the special vellum copy of Antoine Vérard’s edition of Claude de Seyssel’s Louenges du roy (1508) juxtaposes an opening miniature featuring the author’s presentation of his work to Anne with a verbal dedication of his writing to the king himself. In a similar vein, the Dyalogue de Vertu Militaire et Jeunesse Françoise, dedicated to the French queen by Jean Lemaire de Belges in 1511, lauds Louis XII as an example of military virtue, while associating the queen with Dame Vertu militaire herself. Thus, while evidence suggests that Anne of Brittany controlled the literary patronage system at the French court more resolutely in her second reign, during which time she often appears alone, both verbally and visually, as designated dedicatee or commissioner of the books written and decorated for her, she frequently ends up sharing center stage with her royal partner as well. These dynamics motivate one of the best-known works about Louis XII’s military accomplishments, Jean Marot’s Voyage de Gênes, which the author offered to the French queen in an exquisitely decorated manuscript (BnF f.fr. 5091) around 1507. Not only did the king figure centrally as a protagonist in Marot’s chronicle, but his visual presence dominates the dedication manuscript as well. An analysis of Marot’s conscious attempt to please Anne of Brittany with this military and political account through the exploitation of female personification allegory uncovers unexpected associations between the author’s dedicatee and the work’s principal literary characters. This discussion sets the stage for an examination of James Paxson ’s theory that, as textual and fictional personifications came to imitate 10. André de la Vigne, La Ressource de la Chrestienté, Paris, BnF ffr. 1687, fol. 1v: Dedication of the manuscript to King Charles VIII by the poet. Bibliothèque Nationale de France. 66 chapter two...