Louis, the Child King

It's a fascinating fresco about the formative years of the young king Louis XIV, before he became the Sun-king at Versailles. It was a dark and violent period, when the Louvre, then still the somewhat gloomy royal palace, was the battle field of palace intrigues while the regency was held by queen-mother Anne of Austria but the actual head of the royal government was the aging cardinal Giulio Mazirini, the less-known Italian precursor and a teacher of Richelieu, who also introduced to the court and the kingdom a host of his countrymen from whom Louis would learn the passion for Italian culture, especially music which would flourish under the direction of Lully.