Les Escaliers D'honneur Dans L'europe Des Cours, 1670-1760 Architecture Et Décor D'une Pièce D'apparat

Between the 1670s and 1760s, the great staircases of honour became a privileged place of pomp in the residences of European princes, embodying both the rank and ambitions of their patrons. From Versailles to Caserta, numerous projects were undertaken in a diplomatic context marked by the political rebalancing brought about by the rise to power of Louis XIV's France and then the Wars of Succession in Spain (1701-1713), Poland (1733-1738) and Austria (1740-1748).

Based on an original corpus of some thirty staircases built for sovereign princes in Spain, Great Britain, Italy, France and above all the Holy Roman Empire, this book aims to provide a better understanding of the constraints and issues that governed their production, drawing on sources that are in part unpublished. For the first time, the staircase is examined in terms of both architecture and decoration, from a European perspective that sheds new light on the lavish competition between courts in the modern era.