Florimène at the Court of Charles I

The Florimène Source Materials

The text of Florimène is not extant, but the scenario was published in 1635 as The Argument of the Pastorall of Florimène with the Description of the Scoenes and Intermedii. It has been reproduced in its entirety in Stephen Orgel and Roy Strong's Inigo Jones: The Theatre of the Stuart Court (London, 1973.) A French pastoral, it was performed by the Queen's Ladies.

The drawings for the production have also been reproduced in Orgel and Strong.

A plan of the Hall and a section, were most certainly done at the time of the production, as these are clearly working drawings.
Two other drawings were undoubtedly executed at a later date, perhaps by John Webb, Inigo Jones' assistant. It is unlikely that thety were executed before 1640, and may date from the English Restoration, after 1660.

Of the various elevations and painter's elevations associated with Florimène and reprinted in Orgel and Strong, only the rendering of the full stage is used in the present project, where it appears as a test work-up in black and white and in a colored approximation of the original palette.
The Florimène drawings in the project are largely to scale, although the margin for error in working from reproductions of the originals is quite high. Folds in the paper and shrinkage, as well as inevitable dimensional losses through photography make it all but impossible to produce exact reproductions of thiese materials. Wherever possible, strategies have been employed to minimize the error.
Jack Wolcott