Academic literature on the topic 'Coronation diadem'

AbstractThe article discusses the venue and the nature of the coronation ceremony of the Sasanian kings in the third century. It is argued that the coronation of the early Sasanians was a continuation of a Hellenistic ceremony, which was essentially the act of binding a diadem around one’s head. It seems that the common practice was for the king to bind the diadem himself in the presence of a select circle of courtiers or only in the presence of the gods. Furthermore, the article will demonstrate that Ctesiphon was neither the “capital” nor even the most important residence of the early Sasanians and no ceremony of coronation took place there in the third century.

This article examines the context in which Caesar, enthroned in state, attended the Festival of the Lupercalia of 44 B.C. at which he was offered and rejected a diadem; it asks the question what the ritual had to offer to Caesar. An examination of the Festival's character and tradition suggests (a) that it took the form of a street carnival, (b) that it was concerned simultaneously with the purification, fertility and protection of the people of Rome, and (c) that it had no element of a coronation in its rituals. The suggestion is offered that Caesar's prime motivation was to associate himself with the founders of the city, since he and his family were receiving the honour of a new group of Luperci, set up to parallel those of Romulus and Remus. If Antony's offering of the diadem was pre-arranged, the light-hearted and provocative atmosphere of the occasion strongly suggests that the plan must always have been that Caesar should publicly reject the offer, as he did. But the whole incident illustrates the vigour and creativity of religious life at the time.

The Stephanidae literature through July 2004 is summarized and 326 valid species, including 6 fossil species, are cataloged. Information on the localization of primary and secondary type material, as well as updated names for the localities of primary types, are provided for all valid and synonymized species. Literature treatment of male and female specimens is discriminated in the synonymic listing of all species. The following 90 nomenclatural changes are made: Genus-level type designation (1): Bothrioceros Europaeus Sichel designated as type species of Bothrioceros Sichel. New combinations (69): From Diastephanus: Foenatopus alutaceus (Morley), F. anupam (Narendran & Sureshan), F. bilineatus (Elliott), F. burmaensis (Narendran & Sureshan), F. capitatus (Benoit), F. carinifrons (Enderlein), F. chinnarensis (Sureshan), F. chinensis (Elliott), F. christineae (Narendran), F. costifrons (Elliott), F. daccaensis (Narendran & Sureshan), F. dohrni (Enderlein), F. elegans (Elliott), F. elegantulus (Elliott), F. elongatus (Elliott), F. equatorialis (Benoit), F. flaviceps (Elliott), F. flavifrons (Elliott), F. frontilinea (Morley), F. fuscidens (Kieffer), F. gracilis (Kieffer), F. keralensis (Narendran & Sureshan), F. lucifer (Elliott), F. maculifemur (Enderlein), F. multicolor (Elliott), F. parviceps (Enderlein), F. parvulus (Elliott), F. priyae (Narendran & Sureshan), F. quadridens (Elliott), F. salomonis (Westwood), F. sangalensis (Benoit), F. semiglaber (Elliott), F. simillimus (Elliott), F. stom (Narendran & Sureshan), F. sudhae (Narendran & Sureshan), F. sulcatus (Elliott), F. szepligetii (Enderlein), F. tertianus (Morley), F. trialbatus (Elliott), F. trilineatus (Elliott), F. trilobatus (Elliott), F. wynadensis (Sureshan & Narendran); from Madegafoenus: Megischus bekilyanus (Benoit), M. occiputalis (Benoit); from Megischus: Afromegischus gigas (Schletterer), Foenatopus phoberopus (Sausurre); from Neostephanus: Foenatopus alluaudi (Kieffer), F. berlandi (Benoit), F. camerunus (Enderlein), F. collaris (Benoit), F. crassiceps (Bischoff), F. globiceps (Enderlein), F. insignis (Schletterer), F. longicaudatus (Benoit), F. micans (Benoit), F. obockensis (Benoit), F. oemidaphagus (Benoit), F. pauliani (Benoit), F. pentheri (Kieffer); from Pseudomegischus: Afromegischus tibiator (Schletterer); from Stephanus: Comnatopus xanthocephalus (Cameron); Megischus collectivus (Elliott), M. diversus (Schletterer), M. lanceolatus (Kieffer), M. sanmartinianus (Orfila), M. seyrigi (Benoit), M. hornianus (Enderlein), M. tricolor (Elliott), M. willineri (Orfila). Replacement names (3): Foenatopus annularis Aguiar, generic transfer and replacement name for Diastephanus annulipes Elliott, preventing secondary homonym with F. annulipes (Elliott); F. rufocinctus Aguiar, new status and replacement name for Stephanus togoensis var. fasciatus Enderlein, preventing secondary homonym with F. fasciatus Sz pligeti; Parastephanellus curtus Aguiar, replacement name for secondary homonym of P. curticollis (Elliott) with P. curticollis Elliott. New status (2): Comnatopus Achterberg, new status for Profoenatopus (Comnatopus) Achterberg; Parastephanellus coriaceus Kieffer, new status for Parastephanellus polychromus var. coriacea Kieffer. New genus-group synonyms (1): Pseudomegischus (Callomegischus) Achterberg, new syn- onymy for Afromegischus Achterberg. New species-group synonyms (7): Stephanus comma Morley, new synonymy for Comnatopus xanthocephalus (Cameron); Foenatopus flavicollis flavissimus Benoit, new synonymy for F. flavicollis Cameron; Stephanus testaceipes Elliott, Stephanus iesuiticus Orfila, S. paraguayensis Orfila, and S. martinezi Orfila, new synonyms for Megischus maculipennis Westwood; Parastephanellus impunctatus Elliott, new synonymy for P. nigricaudus (Sichel).Reinstated name (1): Megischus ruficeps Saussure, reinstated, invalidating M. saussurei (Schulz). Species inquirendum (1): Schlettererius rufipes (Say, 1824), a Braconidae. Nomina nuda (3): Foenus diadema Fabricius, nomen nudum for M. coronator (Fabricius); Stephanus curticauda Elliott, nomen nudum for M. curtus (Elliott); Stephanus frontalis Klug, nomen nudum, correspondent species unknown.

This paper, on the identities shown in one of the cameos in Empress Josephine’s pearl and cameo diadem, has first of all focused on the mythological characters, and thereafter raised the question if these are to be seen as an allegory for people from the time. The process of identi-fication has followed the three levels in Panofsky’s method for analysing art, where the first and second levels consist of already known material from the Bernadotte Library, Royal Palace in Stockholm and the jeweller house of Chaumet (former Nitot et Fils) in Paris.                      To decipher both the mythological individuals and the possible allegories, that is the third level, the iconology itself, the thoughts and methods of  Göran Hermerén on the rise and fall of allegories along with Leora Auslander’s solutions using visuals comparisons, when no written material is available, have provided the academic framework for the study.                                When comparing the cameo with pieces of art from the time, the subject fits the description of the Roman mythology’s love goddess Venus and her son Cupid, the lovechild fathered by Mars. Moving on to allegories, well-known material shows that Emperor Napoleon was keen to be portrayed as the god of war Mars and Empress Josephine as Venus.  A portrait of special interest to the study, a rather private painting by Parent from 1807, which is probably still unknown to most people, shows how Josephine is depicted with a recently deceased grandchild, a young boy how was also the nephew of Napoleon’s, a close relative to them both, and in the line of  succession to the throne, while Napoleon still was Emperor. This picture has an expression which is close to the one of Venus and Cupid, and it is also made to look like a cameo. These portraits were known at the time when Napoleon gave the diadem to Josephine in 1809.                                                       Among portraits from the Napoleonic era, there has earlier only been one known painting, even if in two examples, where the diadem is shown. It is a miniature of Empress Josephine, a work from her final period at Malmaison, 1814. However, another miniature picturing the daughter Hortense in the very same piece of jewellery, from 1812, has now become known. In both these examples, the depicted cameo has a hight measuring only millimetres, why a discussion on the execution and the rendering has to be done with restraint. But in the daughter´s portrait there is a certain attempt to show the outlines of the central cameo that differs from the later painting of the Empress. This may be an indication of how much more important it was for the daughter to relay the picture of her mother and the memory of her son, in 1812, than it was for Josephine in 1814, after the divorce, probably after the fall of Napoleon too, when she was no longer his Venus, and there was no longer a throne for any of her grandsons to inherit.         Therefore, in short, the chosen methods give the answer that the mythology depicted is a scene of Venus and her son Cupid, and the allegorical interpretation of Venus is the Empress herself. The child in shape of Cupid here, may well be read as one of her daughter’s sons, at the time a much longed-for heir to the throne of Napoleon I.

The main purpose of this study of a pearl and cameo diadem, given by Napoleon to his first wife Josephine in 1809, is to follow its representation in portraiture from Paris in 1812 to Stockholm in 2010, and explore how the iconography develops during these 200 years. From the earlier years, the diadem is found only in miniatures, then after coming to the new royal family in Sweden, the Bernadottes, it is given a role of an heirloom representing history and families in grand paintings, arriving to the present well-known wedding hairpiece, covered by modern media, where the diadem is more of a crown than the open, forehead-covering piece of fashion jewellery it was during the Napoleonic era in France. The portraits from 1812, 1814, 1836, 1837, 1877, 1976, 2000/2003 and 2010 also portray a development of the female role model of its time. Just like the hair piece attains an iconography which comprises not only the highest dress codes but also a possibility of status transformation for the people involved in ceremony, the role of the country’s First Lady is about to change into a higher, more egalitarian position of present days.

The Wessex kings’ conquest of the whole of England during the first half of the tenth century created conditions that led to a nation-state being recognizable by the end of the eleventh. In Scotland this was a much longer process, and Wales remained fragmented. The differences between them are mirrored by coinage; increasingly regulated and systematic in England, but not even produced in Scotland or Wales. The nation-state remained focused upon kings, however, elevating their status but exposing society to the haphazard behaviour and ambitions of an individual. They might still be seen as leading their ‘people’, English, Norman or whomsoever, but in reality they depended upon the support of a military elite and legitimization by the Church, rather than upon an efficient bureaucracy, let alone upon popular acceptance. Physical expression of royal supremacy was provided by increasingly elaborate inauguration rituals, and by crown-wearing ceremonies held on major feast-days at Gloucester, Winchester, and elsewhere, when the king represented his elevation by displaying himself with his emblems of power. A crown had been used as an image on coins by King Athelstan in the 930s, though his immediate successors stuck mainly to the traditional diadem. Ethelred (978–1016) added a staff, symbolizing a king’s pastoral duties to his people, and was occasionally shown wearing a round cap, usually taken to represent a helmet based on Roman coin images rather than on contemporary armour. The ‘hand of Providence’ on the reverse of some of his coins implied God’s blessing on an anointed king (cf. Col. pl. F.2). Cnut (1016–35) began his reign with a coin showing him crowned, as though to emphasize that his usurpation of power was legitimized by God through his coronation; the crown was a new type, an open circle surmounted by gold lilies. He followed it with a coin that has him wearing a tall, pointed helmet, this time a form that was in contemporary use. The lily-circlet crown had already been shown in a manuscript picture being worn by King Edgar in c.966, and a domed version was drawn being brought down from Heaven to crown Cnut in a painting that commemorates his donation of a gold cross to the New Minster at Winchester.