Louis XIV playing the part of Apollo

The potent symbolism of Louis XIV as the "sun king" goes back to his birth, when the idea was suggested by a Dominican friar, Tomaso Campanella. It was later systematically continued by the king's chief minister, Cardinal Mazarin, as a way of confirming the monarch's status as God's deputy on earth. In this scheme, the sun stood for the king's position at the centre of the state and for his notional claim to world dominance and pre-eminence among the monarchs of Europe. Solar symbolism at the court of Versailles did not, however, remain limited to symbolic references in art and literature. As a young monarch, Louis XIV in 1653 personally played the part of Apollo, the sun god, in Lully's Ballet royal de la nuit, thereby "actually" assuming the character of the sun.

Young Louis XIV playing the part of Apollo in "Ballet royal de la nuit" by Jean-Baptiste Lully (1653), drawing, [after 1653], artist unknown; source: Gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France, https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b52502200s, public domain.