Charles V, Bartolomé Ordóñez, and the tomb of Joanna of Castile and Philip of Burgundy in Granada : an iconographical perspective of a major royal monument of Renaissance Europe (original) (raw)
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This study aims to show through various textual and iconographic examples how kings from the 13th to the 15th centuries were able to exploit public ceremonies and works of art for propaganda purposes. At the same time, it will also demonstrate the extent to which some medieval kings based their legitimacy on the memory of their predecessors through textual and iconographical initiatives. Furthermore, the study will show that out of all the various Christian kingdoms in the medieval Iberian Peninsula, one of the richest and most exemplary in this regard was the Crown of Aragon under the rule of Peter IV (1336-1387), also known as the Ceremonious. Este trabajo tiene como objetivo mostrar los distintos mecanismos que utilizó la monarquía para visualizar y legitimar su poder. Dentro de los distintos reinos peninsulares, uno de los más ricos y ejemplares en este sentido fue el protagonizado, en la Corona de Aragón, por Pedro IV que ha pasado a la historia con el merecido sobrenombre de el Ceremonioso (1336-1387). Este artículo tiene como objeto poner de manifiesto, a través de distintos ejemplos textuales e iconográficos, hasta qué punto el rey Pedro el Ceremonioso supo rentabilizar sus actuaciones públicas y promociones artísticas con un claro objetivo propagandístico, especialmente en los momentos de mayor dificultad, o de inflexión, de su dilatado reinado. Se evidencia también hasta qué punto parte de su legitimación está basada en la memoria de uno de sus más admirados antecesores, Jaime I el Conquistador (1213-1276), fascinación que puede rastrearse, más o menos veladamente, en todas sus iniciativas, tanto en las de carácter textual como en las iconográficas.
[2021] "Ferdinand II of Aragon (1479-1516)", Encyclopedia of Medieval Royal Iconography, 1
Fernando II king of Aragon (1479-1516). He was the fourth king of the Trastámara dynasty, who came to the throne after the Compromise of Caspe on the death of Martin I (1410) without descendants. Fernando II, in the background with respect to the promotion of his wife Isabel I, was aware that the wise use of artistic commissions could reinforce ideas and concepts favourable to the monarchical institution. With him we are witnessing a milestone because we are faced with a new conception of power based on co-government, reflected in the iconography exhibited in all artistic genres. All its images bear witness to how and in what way King Fernando, at the end of the Middle Ages, wanted to be recognised by his subjects, who also used his image for legitimising and propagandistic purposes. No one in the Spanish crowns had his image represented so many times and on such diverse occasions as the Catholic Monarchs illustrate
Pedro IV was a king with a complex personality due to the diculties he experienced during his childhood, including physical limitations caused by being born two months premature. He overcame these conditions and, conscious of the pre-eminence of his rank and dignity, not only wrote his own chronicle but also ordered the drafting of ordinances for his house and court. The latter structured the order of ceremony, for example prescribing how and with what elements and actions the coronations of the kingdom of Aragon were to be carried out. This study is focused on the most important aspects concerning the king’s presence, how he describes his participation in all sorts of events, how these events were to be organized, and how they are corroborated by his iconography. In accordance with the general theme of this volume, special attention has been paid to his physical appearance, that is, his clothing and insignia, as well as to his environment, for example the stages and settings for the events in which he was involved, along with their architecture, furniture, and accessories. Through such means, Pedro IV was able to demonstrate in the eyes of his subjects the political theology he personified. Its visual manifestation during his reign marks a milestone in the saga of the kings of Aragon.
The reign of the king of the Crown of Aragón, Jaime II, is one of the most politically and artistically interesting in the medieval Iberian Peninsula. Scholars in recent years have highlighted the way he used art as a tool of power, but there still remains a lot to be clarified, in particular the profound meaning of some of his commissions and their relevance beyond his own generation, the relevance of his kingship in Sicily to his visual culture before becoming king of Aragon, the reasons why there was a real aesthetic change during his kingship, the role of queens -if there were any- in this change, or the important relations between politic events and his promotion of the arts. Jaime II constructed his outward appearance and communicated it by means of a variety of rituals, object-types and media, as some of his predecessors did, and he used art to make visible a concise image of power and authority. As will explain, he was not merely the result of an existing trend: Jaime II marked a milestone in the use of art for propaganda purposes and, as history states, he was the rightful inspirer of some of his successors’ commissions, among others Pedro IV the Ceremonious (1337-1386). Roughly speaking, there are just under 70 effigies: 34 from illuminated manuscripts, 3 sculptures, 14 seal variants; and 15 different typologies of coin. Of course, the effigies belonging to seals and coins can be reduced in number: only 10 seals present any novelties, and just 2 coins are attractive from an iconographic point of view. However, this reduced number of pieces is still far from dissapointing: there are more than enough to analyse how he wanted to be portrayed in medieval society, in particular through those objects that had a high legal value and that must be understood as acting as a surrogate for the king’s physical presence. The same happens with sculpture: we have very few effigies, but they constitute a clear manifestation of power with a deep meaning that extended far beyond his own lifetime. Those depictions are directly associated with the king’s patronage, into contrast to most of the representations that we find of him in manuscripts, so it is interesting to study why this is and for what ends and uses we have his portrait -in a broad sense of the term- in their folios. To carry out this study, I will leave to one side the large bibliography published about the king, and will instead focus on other written sources such as documents issued by the king, the royal chancellery and chronicles, including three of The Four Great Chronicles. All these references and others such as the Descendentia dominorum regum Siciliae can be used to discuss the image of the king and in what forms, where, when and for what reasons his image was used by himself or by other institutions in the Medieval Crown of Aragon.
Art History, 2021
In Diego Velázquez’s Portrait of Juan Martínez Montañés, a sculptor models a bust of king Philip IV. Whereas the figure of the sitter, and even the background, are highly finished, the bust is sketched in the most general of outlines. The painting’s purposeful incompleteness, this essay argues, stems from Velázquez’s experience as a censor of royal portraits. These images were subjected to strictures because they were said to be surrogates of the monarch rather than mere representations. By suspending work on the king’s bust in the painting, Velázquez astutely fulfilled the demands of depicting a fellow artist at work on his most important commission, while circumventing the subtle codes for making royal images. Although there was concern that the larger corpus of kingly portraiture could be destabilized by exemplars that did not fit its general parameters, individual artists and monarchs actually developed idiosyncratic solutions for representing the king with some frequency. Velázquez’s portrait, which represents one such solution, is examined alongside, and contrasted against, a number of other examples, in order to demonstrate the flexibility of this seemingly rigid image type.
La Albolafia, 2020
Between 1347 and 1378 Charles IV in the Kingdom of Bohemia and the Holy Roman Empire, at the same time as Pedro I in the Kingdom of Castile developed architectonic and urban projects in order to exalt their authority. These projects responded to very different artistic styles. Meanwhile Pedro I used the Islamic architecture deeply rooted in the visual culture of the Cas-tilian Kingdom, Charles IV opted for the avant-garde Rayonnant Gothic style coming from the south of France. However, both architectures share some common resources that boosted the mysticism, propaganda, authority and power of the promotors. We are going to analyze in this paper the common points on their political ideals and the common sources that they will adopt in their architecture in order to extol their political image.