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)
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.
Review of Spanish Medieval Art: Recent Studies, Princeton University, 2010
Bulletin of Spanish Studies, 2010
This volume is a collection of eight essays by a new generation of scholars from the United States, Spain and Great Britain. Given its sponsorship by the Index of Christian Art at Princeton University, the scope of the papers is narrower than its generic title suggests, since it is limited to iconography and Christian art. Fortunately, however, the essays break away from the artificial boundaries between Christian, Islamic and Jewish art in medieval Spain, to examine the art works within their complex multi-cultural and multi-religious reality. This historical contextualization provides new insights into the culture of medieval Iberia, as well as on how art could become a highly sophisticated tool for the ideology of their patrons. All the essays either challenge traditional interpretations of well known works, or present the readers with novel materials previously overlooked by the literature in English. Another important common denominator is the attention paid to the intended audiences of the art works as well as to their complex and multilayered meaning. The essays offer an exciting variety of methodologies and interests to which one cannot do justice in a few lines. The first essay, by James D'Emilio, looks into a little known but numerous group of inscriptions in Romanesque buildings in Galicia. His study advocates a holistic approach that incorporates such disparate issues as the design of the inscriptions, their value as a source of knowledge about building history, patrons and artists, relationships between the cultural centres and surrounding countryside, the system of property, or the implementation of the Gregorian Reform. The essay by Therese Martin focuses on two little known secular Romanesque palaces in Huesca and Estella. Besides arguing for a new dating for both works, and a female patronage for the one at Huesca, (Queen Petronila), Martin provides new readings of some of the capitals that decorate them. Disregarding traditional boundaries between secular and religious in Romanesque art, she argues that some of the religious scenes were conveniently altered in order to reinforce the dynastic rights and royal authority of their patrons. The essay by Manuel Castiñ eiras proposes alternative lines of inquiry for the understanding of the Romanesque painted altar-frontals from Catalonia, ranging from technical issues linking the altar-frontals to wall painting, to their role in liturgical celebrations, their iconographical sources, and their connection to Byzantine art. Three other essays illustrate the rich field of research that Romanesque cloisters has become. Pamela Patton deciphers the many layers of meaning present in the capital representing the Meeting of the Temple Priests and Pharisees in the House of Caiphas, from the cloister at Santa Maria la Mayor, in Tudela. Her focus is on the visual representation of the Jews, and the attitude it reveals not only about Judaism but about the generic non-Christian other, be it from the Old Testament, contemporary Jews or Muslims. She also places this capital within contemporary polemics about the Talmud, and concerns about promoting the Christian faith among the Jewish population of Tudela. The well known pillar from the cloister of Santo Domingo de Silos with the Incredulity of St Thomas and the Journey to Emmaus is the subject of the essay by Elizabeth Valdez del Alamo. Taking into account the experience of the cloister by the monks, and their particular interests, she unveils a multi-layered interpretation that
Many scholars, of whom Adeline Rucquoi is one of the most prominent, have insisted on eradicating the term legitimation from any discussion regarding monarchical institutions in the Iberian Peninsula, a conclusion that I have also arrived at after my studies on Spanish royal symbols and insignia in material, documentary and iconographic sources. There can be no doubt that successors to the throne of Aragon were authorized as such by the right of primogeniture; that is, a successor’s investiture as King of Aragon was grounded on this principle alone. The case of James I, also known as James the Conqueror, is illustrative because although he never took part in any coronation ceremony, in 1213 he was named King of Aragon immediately after the death of his father Peter II, King of Aragon, Count of Barcelona and Lord of Montpellier. Nevertheless, I use this problematic term extensively throughout this article because the fact that James I was denied a formal coronation led him to create a series of other mechanisms designed to legitimize his rule. There is no doubt that one of the strongest and most illuminating arguments in favour of this hypothesis was put forward by Bonifacio Palacios, who stated that James I invoked the ‘right of conquest’ to justify his sovereignty over newly conquered lands. However, as we will see, James I also employed other legitimizing narratives, such as the supposed assistance that he received from Saint George during his conquest of the kingdoms of Mallorca and Valencia, because, of course, the idealized image of the monarch could not only be limited to the military sphere, but rather had to include other virtues such as religious legitimacy. This article will show how and to what extent these mechanisms, which were motivated by the lack of a Church-sanctioned coronation, were reflected in the iconography of the Iberian kings of the Middle Ages, in particular James I (the Conqueror) and Peter IV (the Ceremonious), and how they were used to seal or paste into memory a set of arguments. The article will also determine why Peter IV, who had to assert his potestas over the increasingly powerful estates, was so active in disseminating these legitimizing mechanisms in texts and images.
The aim of this study is to analyze the coronation ceremonies carried out in the Crown of Aragon throughout the Middle Ages. Although the pope granted most Western monarchies the right to hold these ceremonies in their own kingdoms in 1204, our study will address the mechanisms used to appoint kings both before and after the consolidation of these ceremonies, mechanisms which reflected the power struggles between the parties involved, that is, the prince and the Church. We will examine the elements that remained constant throughout this period but we will also pay particular attention to the alterations that were made and how these had important consequences that went beyond politics and entered religious terrain. Among the changes were the kings' e↵orts to participate in priestly orders, the promotion and consolidation of new liturgy with content intended to legitimize the kings, and the use of new iconographies with sacred references. As will be seen, these are only a small example of the mechanisms used by the sovereigns of the Crown of Aragon to re-emphasize their links with God, which had been weakened by the transformations to the anointing and coronation ceremonials and the resulting tensions with Rome, particularly during the times of Peter IV (1336-1387).