new-found sense of enhanced status. In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth
century, there was considerable building of princely palaces with ornate,
carefully designed gardens, often modelled on King Louis XIV’s fabled palace at
Versailles. Foreign artists and architects, particularly from France and Italy, were
brought in to design and construct appropriate settings for the rituals and dramas
of court life. Even rulers of tiny territories sought to emulate the great courts.
Operas, theatres, masques, ballets, were staged; Italian and other foreign
musicians and performers were brought to court; a great variety of people were
employed to ensure the organisation of activities ranging from hunting
expeditions to sleigh rides. Aristocrats engaged in intrigues, seeking favour in
high places; aspiring commoners attempted to ingratiate themselves and make
propitious marriages for their daughters; the notion of ‘courteous conduct’
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