Anna di Danimarca e i ‘Queen’s Masques’ (1604-1611)

Abstract

This essay offers a preliminary portrait of Anna of Denmark, queen of Scotland from 1589 for her marriage with James VI and queen of England, Scotland and Ireland for her husband’s accession to the throne as James I in 1603. Unjustly described by the anti-jacobean storiography as a vague character, changeable and superficial, extremely frivolous because of her interest in the court revels, Anna was instead an emblematic and eclectic personality, both in politics and cultural activity, expecially for her patronage of arts, artists and spectacle. Patron of painters, musicians and actors, connoisseurs of the Italian Renaissance architecture, Anna was the effective promoter of the english court spectacle, creating a series of yearly events which, from 1604 to 1611, signed the ultimate codification of the English masque.