The Geocentric Sun King

The idea that Louis XIV, the ‘Sun King’, saw himself as being the centre of the universe is longstanding and widespread. Less well known is the fact that ballets in which he appeared as the sun among the then-known planets are part of a century-old tradition of performances addressing cosmological topics. Indeed, an analysis of the relevant sources shows that since the sixteenth century all ballets with cosmological themes presented a view of the world that was accepted by science of the time. Performances at the French court (from the Mascarade de Bar-le-Duc in 1564 to the Ballet des Sept Planètes in 1662 and Les Amants magnifiques in 1670) demonstrate a shift from the geocentric, Ptolemaic-Christian model to the Tychonic model, with its geo-heliocentric view of the universe, according to which the earth was the main centre, and the moving sun a secondary one. This paper shows that the widespread view of the Sun King is inaccurate: It reveals that whenever Louis XIV and his predecessors danced the part of the Sun, they were not representing the centre of the universe…

Hanna Walsdorf received her Ph.D. in Musicology and Dance Studies in 2009 from the University of Salzburg (Austria) and completed her habilitation (Dr. habil.) at the University of Music and Theatre “Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy” Leipzig in 2022. From 2009–2013, Hanna was a postdoctoral research fellow in Musicology at Heidelberg University (Germany). She was awarded the Tanzwissenschaftspreis NRW in 2011. From 2014 to 2020, she directed the Emmy Noether Research Group Ritual Design for the Ballet Stage (1650–1760), granted by the German Research Foundation (DFG). In 2020–2021, she was a guest lecturer at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig, and at the University of Salzburg. In autumn 2021 she was appointed Assistant Professor for Musicology at the University of Basel (Switzerland) where she is now based. In 2023, she was awarded an SNSF Advanced Grant for the project The Night Side of Music (NightMuse, 2024–2029).