Italian forms of entertainment were introduced into France during the reigns of Louis XII, Charles VII, and Francis I. Italian artistic influence became quite strong under Catherine de' Medici. Catherine had grown up with the elaborate and inventive spectacles given by her Medici relatives. When she became Queen of France, she imported Italian artists, musicians and dancing masters to the Valois court. The entertainments presented while she was Queen and Queen Mother included intermedii, ballets,carousels,tourneys and mascarades.
The Italian intermedio was a single scene presented with music, lavish costumes, scenery, stage machinery, and a minimum of action. It was performed between acts of a play with the express purpose of dazzling and delighting audiences with its visual and mechanical effects. The intermedio was adopted and adapted to French taste in the early sixteenth century and was a source of many theatrical elements that were later incorporated in the ballet de cour, of which Le Balet Comique de la Reine is the first generally recognized example. * (MacClintock,pp.13-14)
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