Global Imaginaries and Elephantine Artifice

Labyrinthe Royal de l’Hercule Gaulois triomphant (Avignon, 1601) documents a ceremonial performance that happens more in the time of reading than a historical moment. Focusing on discrepancies between a vivid image of elephants and a description attesting that there were none reveals how this document makes the festival “present” by suspending the reader between allegory and history, representation and performance, and most importantly, the presence and(/as) absence of racialized “Mores” driving the fictitious pachyderms.