Financing Festivals, Music and Theatre: Real Expenses and Fictional Expenditures in France between the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

Project Information

SPECTACLECONOMICS

Grant agreement ID: 101027860

DOI

10.3030/101027860

Project closed

EC signature date 5 May 2021

Start date 1 October 2021

End date 30 September 2023

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 196 707,84

EU contribution

€ 196 707,84

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITE DE TOURS
France

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SPECTACLECONOMICS (Financing Festivals, Music and Theatre: Real Expenses and Fictional Expenditures in France between the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries)

Reporting period: 2021-10-01 to 2023-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The main purpose of the project was to promote study of the economic history of French spectacle in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, opening a new line of research in a largely unexplored field of study, that of the costs of court and civic festivals, developing a research method that distinguished between “real” expenses (documented through accounting records) and “fictitious” expenditures (spread by the propaganda of official descriptions or the gossip of epistolary accounts). Normally, real expenditures are considerably lower than fictitious ones. The purpose of this project was to verify, through a survey of French accounting archives, whether the same phenomenon (already found at the Medici court in Florence) existed beyond the Alps.

The other objective was to highlight some historiographical problems (such as the methods of financing civic and court performances, and finally the motivations behind these productions) and bring them to the attention of the scholarly European community of all possible disciplinary fields involved in the study of Renaissance and Early Modern spectacles, including theater historians, musicologists, economic historians, art historians, historians of the medieval and modern ages, and literary scholars. Succeeding in the stated objective would have brought with it another consequence: namely, to stimulate interest in and the study of the economic management of the performing arts in the period in question, investigating other fundamental aspects, such as the processes of production and modes of consumption (and thus the relationship between financing bodies and their ‘audiences’), and finally on the birth and evolution of the professions related to the performing arts.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The researcher has conducted archival research, collected documents, and concluded two publications that she has submitted to peer-reviewed and open-access journals, while she is completing a third. To disseminate her findings, she has participated in 14 public events (including conferences, lectures, seminars, roundtables). He also organized a panel at the Renaissance Society of America (Dublin 2021) and an international conference (with proceedings) held 8–10 June, 2023.
https://www.lestudium- ias.com/events/economics-spectacle-funding-ephemeral-arts-early-modern-europe. She is also preparing an article and a methodological introduction for the proceedings from the conference.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The comparison of different models of production and economic management of the spectacle in the Renaissance and Early Modern ages is bringing many new insights, which aspire to lead to the creation of supranational networks, paving the way for a European-level research group. Ongoing and future publications will illustrate the results to the scientific community.
At the same time, a better understanding of this topic in the past could have a positive impact on the performing arts economics in the present: dissemination of the results to practitioners could lead to the identification of strategies to implement economic development and investment in contemporary performing arts, engaging performers, actors, musicians, dancers, composers, directors and artists to disseminate knowledge of Renaissance and Baroque theater to the general public through historically informed performances, concerts and plays.

Port Royal Carousel 1612