ABSTRACT
In 1660, the Jesuit Claude‐François Ménestrier received a commission from the city of Lyon to construct a ‘machine’ for the celebration of the Pyrenees Peace Treaty. This machine was to be part of a series of twenty-seven decorations on show throughout the city during a three-day-long festival. Ménestrier’s decoration featured the temple of Janus in the month of March – an iconography inspired by the Roman calendar. March (the first month of the Republican year) was chosen to celebrate Janus, whose name is incorporated in January (the first month of the Imperial calendar). Their association, as an allegory of Louis XIV’s new reign, signified the advent of an era in which peace would take the place of war. Ménestrier’s decoration was the only one commissioned by public authorities. The other twenty-six decorations were commissioned by noble families, high-ranking public figures, corporations and even private firework promoters, thus offering a unique view of the private celebrations accompanying public ephemeral decorations. They also suggest that ephemeral decorations in early modern Europe can sometimes be an excuse for the expression of private interests even when they have very little to do with the declared public occasion.
