(Roughly) Daily

250 years ago [this month], on an abandoned patch of land near London’s Waterloo, showman, entrepreneur and equestrian rider Philip Astley drew out a circle in the ground and filled it with astounding physical acts. This spectacle was the world’s very first circus. It was 1768, a time of revolutions, and poet William Blake could have been one of Astley’s first customers. But the real revolution Astley created was a whole new art form. His 42 foot ring, the dazzling combination of jugglers, acrobats, clowns, strong men, bareback riders… Every circus, anywhere, began at this moment in 1768.

250 years later, circus is a worldwide phenomenon. There’s barely an art form that isn’t touched by it – from Sir Peter Blake’s circus collages to cutting edge performance art. Every schoolchild can tell you what a circus is. Many of us would secretly like to run away and join one…

Ladies and gentlemen and children of all ages, what you are about to see will thrill you. It will chill you. It will keep you on the edge of your seat: “Circus 250.”

See also.

* e e cummings

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As we bow to the Big Top, we might recall that it was on this date in 1145 that Pope Lucius II gifted the Circus Maximus to Rome’s wealthiest families.  It was an attempt to strengthen his alliance with the Guelfs and their faction in opposition to the Roman Senate and the emerging Roman Commune (all part of a larger conflict between the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor).

Pope Lucius II

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