Leonor de Toledo and the Construction of Spanish Identity in Sixteenth-Century Florence (original) (raw)
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Establishing Spanish Cultural Identities at Rome (1516–1598)
Hispanic Research Journal, 2018
This article builds on the developing interest in the growth in number and influence of the Spanish community at Rome through the course of the sixteenth century: this research has so far focused particularly on the role of the national churches. My article will now deepen and broaden this research through enhancing our understanding of the significant role of a unified Spanish cultural identity, as expressed through works of material culture, in establishing their position and status within a complex web of transcultural relationships at Rome. Through the course of the sixteenth century, a Spanish cultural presence at Rome manifested itself in both permanent constructions such as churches and chapels and also ephemera such as festivities. While, in turn, works that were commissioned from Roman artists are still found scattered through the Iberian Peninsula. These phenomena all shed light on the nuances of the ambivalent relationship that existed between Spain and Rome in these years, as Rome was both a part of wider Spanish imperium and yet not so. RESUMEN Este art ıculo parte del inter es que ha generado la creciente presencia e influencia de la comunidad española en Roma durante el siglo XVI: hasta ahora esta investigaci on se ha concentrado en el papel desempeñado por las iglesias nacionales. Mi investigaci on profundiza en y ampl ıa nuestra comprensi on del papel primordial de la identidad española unificada, tal y como se manifest o en la cultura material, para establecer su posici on y estatus en la compleja red de relaciones transculturales romanas. Durante el siglo XVI, la presencia cultural española se manifest o tanto a trav es de construcciones permanentes, como iglesias y capillas, como mediante la fiesta y el arte ef ımero. Al mismo tiempo, obras encargadas a artistas romanos llenaron la Pen ınsula Ib erica. Estos fen omenos muestran las m ultiples facetas de la relaci on ambivalente entre España y Roma, que fue a la vez parte del vasto imperium español y ajena a el.
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Bulletin of Spanish Visual Studies, 2019
This article charts relationships between the Medici court and the Habsburg empire through the prism of theatre, from the foundation of the grand-duchy to the first decades of the seventeenth century. It also highlights major examples of both dynastic and aesthetic relations and their impact on theatrical practice. Part II analyses the specific case of the Ramírez Montalvo family, one of the most illustrious names within the Spanish colony and well established in the accounts of court spectacle. I A Privileged Relationship Sara Mamone The presence of the Spanish nation in Florence reached its apex in the history of performance and pageantry at the beginning of the grand-ducal period, thanks to its close dynastic and political ties with the Medici; its origins, however, date back to much earlier times. The close relations of some of the most eminent representatives of Iberian families with the grand-ducal entourage undoubtedly meant that the former became important collaborators in the various phases of self-representation in Tuscan pageantry, which borrowed much from Spanish ceremonial tradition. Five Tuscan grand duchesses came from Habsburg Spain, the Habsburg empire or from families with very close imperial ties. This connection began with the foundational union between Duke Alessandro (1510-1537) and Margaret (1522-1586), Charles V's natural daughter. Such close connections with the Habsburgs were not only based on dynastic motivations but were also a fairly natural expansion of consolidated
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© 1964-2011 Canadian Society for Renaissance Studies/Société canadienne d'études de la Renaissance; the Pacific Northwest Renaissance Society; the Toronto Renaissance and Reformation Colloquium; and The Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies at ...
In January 1462 at Tours, the humanist Donato Acciaiuoli, accompanying his father-in-law Piero de’ Pazzi on a Florentine embassy to France, presented the illuminated manuscript containing his life of Charlemagne to King Louis XI. At first glance, this diplomatic gift appears to have been nothing more than a symbol of the connection between France and Florence, celebrating a shared hero. In this article, the book is instead revealed to have played a key cultural-political role in the anti-Medici agenda of Piero de’ Pazzi and his allies, who opposed the regime’s policy and sought to restore the French house of Anjou to the throne of Naples. The discovery that the shop of Vespasiano da Bisticci, the cartolaio and book-dealer who produced the volume, served as a nexus for this network leads in turn to a reconsideration of his own role in the contiguous worlds of Florentine culture and politics. In contrast to the traditional portrayal of Vespasiano as a loyal supporter of the house of Aragon, this article explores the friendships and business relations that, in the middle decades of the Quattrocento, Vespasiano also nurtured with members of the patrician elite with opposite loyalties. By the century’s later decades, however, Vespasiano’s position had become less contradictory than it had earlier seemed, as both Angevin and Aragonese factions in Florence were increasingly disenfranchised by the regime. The picture of Vespasiano as agent and chronicler of this class offers a deeper understanding of the motivation behind the vernacular biographies he wrote.