Girandole

Main Entry:
gir·an·dole
Pronunciation: \ˈjir-ən-ˌdōl\
Function: noun
Etymology: French & Italian; French, from Italian girandola, from girare to turn, from Late Latin gyrare, from Latin gyrus gyre
Date: 1749

1 : a radiating and showy composition (as a cluster of skyrockets fired together) 2 : an ornamental branched candlestick 3 : a pendant earring usually with three ornaments hanging from a central piece

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Well, to be honest, this is the first thing I thought of: The Center of the Hollywood Universe. But that's not exactly relevant.

The second thing I thought of is something we probably all know or at least have heard at some point in our education.

"L'état, c'est moi." - Louis XIV of France

"Louis XIV chose the sun as his emblem. The sun was associated with Apollo, god of peace and arts, and was also the heavenly body which gave life to all things, regulating everything as it rose and set. Like Apollo, the warrior-king Louis XIV brought peace, was a patron of the arts, and dispensed his bounty. The regularity of his work habits and his ritual risings and retirings (levee and couchee) were another point of solar comparison. Throughout Versailles, decoration combines images and attributes of Apollo (laurel, lyre, tripod) with the king's portraits and emblems (the double LL, the royal crown, the sceptre and hand of justice). The Apollo Salon is the main room of the Grand Apartment because it was originally the monarch's state chamber. The path of the sun is also traced in the layout of the gardens."
(Louis XIV the Sun King)

King Louis XIV is known to the history books as the Sun King. As the "sun" he was in the middle of everything, and his gravitational pull kept everyone and everything under his control to some extent. The quote above outlines some of the sun imagery and symbolism as Louis XIV used it.

So how does this connect to girandole? If you look at the first definition, "a radiating and showy composition (as a cluster of skyrockets fired together)", you might think of the arts. As the quote above mentions, Louis XIV was a great patron of the arts- everything from painting to theater. You can also take this to mean Versailles, which as a palace is nothing if not radiating and showy. I mean that in the best way possible. If you look at the second and third definitions, you get the idea of things branching out or dangling from a central piece. Think of Louis XIV's court, always kept around him at Versailles. They were the satellites to his sun. Without that central piece, there would be more conflict between those other pieces, but the central one regulates it all. At the time of his rule France was arguably the most powerful country in Europe, so you could even broaden that satellite metaphor out to Europe.

Was he the best king ever? Oh, probably not. With all the good things he did there were naturally plenty of downsides (not the least of which was his extravagant spending, a trend which continued straight on down to Louis XVI, and we all know how that turned out).

TRIVIA: French heels can be traced back to Louis XIV. Being rather short, he sometimes wore shoes with a higher heel to make himself appear taller. Click here, here, or here for a little more on this. You can see a famous example in the picture below.




Here's a video of some images of Louis XIV accompanied by some music of that time period (by Lully, a composer he supported). Look for the shoes! :)