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It
is generally accepted that the 15th-century
Burgundian court served as a model for
the early modern courts of Europe.
Recreation and entertainment were
essential features in the life at court
of the great Burgundian dukes Philip the
Good and Charles the Bold. Information
about the way the Burgundian dukes
played is very sparse, but we do know
that it was common practice for them to
play for a wager upon the outcome of a
match.
Philip’s and
Charles’account books frequently mention
expenses for playing jeu de paume or
caetspel, expenses sometimes even
exceeding an average labourer’s annual
wages. The dukes possessed tennis courts
at virtually all their major palaces:
The Temple in Paris, Dijon, Bruges,
Ghent and in the garden of the Château
de la Riviere. The first reference to
the construction of a tennis court we
find at the Prinsenhof in Bruges
(1453-1454).
Two open tennis
courts are visible in the background of
a Prinsenhof engraving of 1640 (see
photo below).
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Prinsenhof Place in Bruges (1640), with
two open tennis courts in the background |
Sala dei Giganti,
Emperor Charles V was a keen tennis
player. Several of the matches he played
against other Renaissance rulers were
witnessed by contemporary writers. In
1522 the emperor played King Henry VIII
at Bridewell Palace. The Palazzo Te in
Mantua was the venue of another famous
match Charles played, this time against
Federico Gonzaga, who had just been made
Duke by the emperor.
For the occasion a unique architectural
link was established between the
palace’s recently built tennis court at
Palazzo Te and the Sala dei Giganti,
one of the most famous frescoed rooms of
the Renaissance.
The frescoes by Giulio
Romano were inspired by Ovid’s
Metamorphoses and described the
battle between the Olympians, led by
Charles V as Jupiter (see photo), and
the Giants. The Sala dei Giganti
incorporated an acoustic element which
linked it directly to the tennis court
next door. When the visitor admired the
frescoes, he could hear the sound of the
balls bouncing off the walls and rolling
over the wooden penthouses during a
match, which created a dramatic effect.
The
garden of Charles’ Coudenberg Palace in
Brussels included a tennis court, as
testified by Antonio de Beatis in 1517.
The description in his diary reads: “..
it is a fine tennis court surrounded by
sloping roofs and beneath these and over
the roofs – for the game is played in a
sunken area – large numbers of
spectators can watch the game. They use
rackets and play very well”. Towards the
end of Charles’ reign a fascinating
painting was created which features a
tennis court which bears a great
resemblance to Beatis’ description. The
1540 painting (see photo, detail????),
by Lucas Gassel of Helmond, is known as
the Landscape with David and
Bathsheba and portrays the emperor’s
main palace and its extensive gardens as
a perfect setting to engage in a game of
tennis and a variety of other courtly
pastimes.
The inclusion of a
tennis court may be seen as proof of the
popularity of the game in court circles,
especially by the emperor, but it also
has an allegorical meaning.
The
principal literary source of inspiration
for the painting were the writings of
Antonio de Guevara, in particular his
Del Menosprecio de la corte y alabanza
de la aldea (A Dispraise of the
Life of a Courtier), published in
1539, one year before Gassel’s
production of the painting with the
tennis court. Guevara served Charles V
as preacher and chronicler. On the one
hand the Menosprecio is a eulogy
of country life with all its simple
pleasures, on the other it is a bitter
attack on the machinations at court. On
several occasions Guevara alludes to the
potentially corruptive qualities of
tennis in his writings, especially if it
involved money.
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David
and Bathsheba Painting
(c.1550) |
At the end of his
preface to the Menosprecio refers
to the adultery of David and Bathsheba,
as described in the bible. Gassel
probably included the maze and the
tennis court in his David and Bathsheba
painting as tempting symbols of courtly
pleasures easier to enter than to
escape. The subject obviously appealed
to the nobility, because between
1540-1560 about twelve copies were made
at Gassel’s workshop of the original,
all very similar in their lay-out and
all including an open tennis court. |
