Procession, pride and politics in the <italic>Medicea hospes</italic> (1638): a Dutch festival book for a French Queen.

In 1638, Caspar Barlaeus penned the <italic>Medicea hospes</italic>, a description of Amsterdam’s festive reception of French Queen Marie de Médicis in September of that year. The first of its kind in the Dutch Republic, the sumptuously illustrated volume featured seventeen etchings, including seven views of the celebrations that took place within the city. This essay examines the illustrations in the <italic>Medicea hospes</italic> with respect to Barlaeus’s prose. I suggest that the images depart from the pictorial conventions of European ceremonial books and instead engage native artistic and literary traditions to evoke peace and prosperity in a Dutch idiom. I situate the visual and textual aggrandisement of Amsterdam within the context of urban rivalries and the political framework of the 1630s, a time when the <italic>vroedschap</italic> attempted to influence foreign policy in favor of a truce with Spain, and assert the city’s economic and cultural preeminence at home and abroad. The <italic>Medicea hospes,</italic> I argue, affirmed a positive image of Amsterdam and served as a political vehicle for the <italic>vroedschap’s</italic> peace efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]