Court Culture in Early Modern Dresden

This is the first cultural history of Baroque Dresden, the capital of Saxony and the most important Protestant territory in the Empire from the mid-sixteenth to the early eighteenth century. Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly shows how the art patronage of the Electors fits into the intellectual climate of the age and investigates its political and religious context. Lutheran church music and architecture, the influence of Italy, the cabinet of curiosities and the culture of collecting, alchemy, mining and early technology, official image-making and court theatre are some of the wealth of colourful subjects dealt with during the period 1553 to 1733. HELEN WATANABE-O'KELLY is Professor of German Literature at Oxford and a Fellow of Exeter College. Her previous books include Triumphall Shews, Tournaments at German Courts in their European Context 1580-1730, The Cambridge History of German Literature, and Festivals and Ceremonies.