Ancient Roman Columns, Eagles, Sciences, and Other Representations

Centerpieces and the Ornamentation of the Early Modern European Festive Table Setting

Abstract

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe, the iconography and apparatus of dining on festive occasions—particularly the numerous elaborate centerpieces—served to narrate, enhance, and reiterate the occasion or aspects thereof. These functions, integral in shaping the participants’ understanding and experience of the celebration, were made possible through the ‘representational’ character of those objects. This paper aims to bring forward and discuss the reasoning behind the use of diverse iconographical elements in the centerpieces of the time for the purposes of meaning creation and the communication of ideas. Four cases of centerpieces from around Europe are discussed extensively towards this aim, as used in four distinctive but equally important spheres of the contemporaneous European societies: the celebration of a military victory at Versailles in 1674; an ecclesiastical jubilee of an abbot at the Zwettl Monastery in 1768; a secular wedding of a noble couple in the Kingdom of Naples in 1687; finally, a queen’s diplomatic visit to Venice in 1768.