ABSTRACT
In November 1514 Pierre Gringore was commissioned by the offi cials of the city of Paris to organize the entry theatres that celebrated the coronation of Queen Mary Tudor as she processed with her entourage down the rue Saint-Denis to Notre Dame and then the Palais Royal, where a banquet was held in her honour. Gringore’s theatres, mounted at seven different sites along the entry route,1 were multimedia events par excellence, for they orchestrated visual, textual and oral performances simultaneously. As stagings of allegorical fi gures and symbols whose interrelationships were designed to convey a political or moralistic message associated with the queen or the royal couple, Gringore’s entry theatres were visual experiences. His tableaux vivants also transmitted information through texts, because Latin inscriptions at the source of his entry theatres and French verses and translations that explained their meaning were displayed on many échafauds.2 In addition, at nearly every site an actor, often called
1 The order of tableaux vivants for Mary Tudor’s entry was the following: Saint-Denis Gate, Ponceau Fountain, Church of the Trinity, Painters’ Gate, Church of the Holy Innocents, Châtelet and the Palais Royal.
