TY - JOUR N2 - In his voluminous memoirs compiled in the early 17th century the Dominican Martin Gruneweg describes a pageant named the Parade of the Planets that took place in Warsaw on 15 February 1580. Central to its stage design was the iconography of the seven planets, each of them represented by its Zodiac sign and its affiliated House. However, no less important for the spectacle was the appearance of numerous characters and stage props from the carnival tradition, e.g. richly dressed men from the Orient, Bacchus, a procession of floats. The Parade of the Planets was a festivity which brought together the court and the townsfolk; it was probably organized by both court and town. More generally, it could be described as an urban carnival parade mimicking some features of the Renaissance Trionfo. The knowledge of celestial phenomena presented in this spectacle was probably adjusted to the needs of a wide audience of the ‘middling sort of people’, whose belief in the geocentric model of the cosmos was still intact. It seems that the Parade of the Planets contained hardly any profound insights or hermetic clues. Gruneweg, though, does find it susceptible to an allegorical interpretation which reveals the spectacle's embedding in Christian spirituality and middle-class virtues. He is pleased with the colourful spectacle, but warns of taking too much pleasure in this kind of entertainment. L1 - http://www.czasopisma.pan.pl/Content/118109/PDF/2020-03-RL-05-Starownik.pdf L2 - http://www.czasopisma.pan.pl/Content/118109 PY - 2020 IS - No 3 (360) EP - 311 DO - 10.24425/rl.2020.135109 KW - Polish culture in the late 16th century KW - urban and court pageants in Early Modern Europe KW - carnival parades KW - planets KW - the Zodiac KW - Warsaw KW - Martin Gruneweg (1562–c. 1618) A1 - Starownik, Agata PB - Polska Akademia Nauk Oddział w Krakowie Komisja Historycznoliteracka PB - Uniwersytet Jagielloński Wydział Polonistyki DA - 2020.12.15 T1 - Historic representations of the planets: The Warsaw parade of the planets pageant as described by Martin Gruneweg SP - 295 UR - http://www.czasopisma.pan.pl/dlibra/publication/edition/118109 T2 - Ruch Literacki ER -