This volume assembles the papers presented at an international interdisciplinary symposium at the University of Marburg in early 1993. The 28 contributors marshal an extensive range of historical examples with a view to providing broad surveys and theoretical discussion of the way in which prescribed ceremonial etiquette and ceremonial practice can be drawn upon to delineate the aesthetics of courtly (also ecclesiastical and urban) culture. Reference is made to various aspects of the history of art, literature, theatre, science and the church.

With reference to the texts, typography, and illustrations of various kinds of ceremonial description, the study analyzes the topicology of this text genre, the task of which is to reduce the sensual complexity of courtly festivities and concentrate entirely on ceremonially relevant features. The function of ceremonial descriptions is determined in the context of the ceremonial aesthetics prevalent in the early modern age. Investigation of the paratexts situates the aporetic rhetorical identity of the genre between the stylistic demands of reader-oriented rhetoric on the one hand and historiography on the other. Emphasis is given to the origins of ceremonious description in the 16th century and the topicological changes it underwent in the late 18th century.