The Funerals of the Habsburg Emperors in the Eighteenth ... - KOPS

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including its Christian character and content; other parts were
much more open to being fashioned into the profane expression
of an enlightened monarchy. Where changes were made, the
expression of intense pious concern was weakened, though the
religious framework, upheld, ironically, by the court ceremonial
and the crypt w;th an altar, never entirely disappeared from any
part of the funeral.
In this development, an important distinction is that between
interactive, ceremonial acts (lying-in-state, procession, burial,
and exequies) and elements offering more opportunity for
creative expression (the castrum dolans as part of the exequies and
the crypt as part of the burial). In addition, we must distinguish
between ephemeral art and durable monuments. From the
mid-seventeenth century, the Christian statements made by
ephemeral art in the form of the castrum doloris were heavily
supplemented by the addition of profane elements. In the early
eighteenth century, under the inßuence of a circle of scholars and
artists, the Christian symbols commonly used were even more
overshadowed by neo-classical interpretations which emphasized
the tradition of the Roman Empire. The highly diversified
symbolic messages of the castra dolons increasingly left the realms
of an officially defined Christian faith. Yet from about the second
third of the eighteenth century, this ephemeral form of art, tied
to the ceremonial events, received less and less attention from the
dynasty and the artists. The intermingling of sacred and secular
seems to have pleased neither the public nor the participants
after about 1740.
The main function of monarchical representation seems to
have shifted to the Capuchin crypt, which became a permanent
monument to an official-and popular--memorial culture.
From the 1720S it was open to the public and functioned as a
showcase for the Habsburg sarcophagi, which were works of
art and decoration shaped by scholarly and creative ideas.
Previously marked as unambiguously Christian by the fact that
the crucifix was the dominant element, the sarcophagi developed
into an iconographically rich ensemble representing
power. Christian motifs were marginalized, but never disappeared
entirely.
The dynamic of change in the elements of funerals thus
proved to be dependent both on the ceremonial organization of