Academic literature on the topic 'Spain – Politics and government – 1598-1621'

ABSTRACTPeace with Spain was debated by Elizabeth I's government from 1598, when France and Spain made peace by signing the Treaty of Vervins. Robert Devereux, second earl of Essex was zealously hostile to accommodation with Spain, while other privy councillors argued in favour of peace. Arguments for and against peace were, however, also articulated in wider contexts, in particular in a series of manuscript treatises, and also in printed tracts from the Netherlands, which appeared in English translation in the late 1590s. This article explores ways that ideas of war and peace were disseminated in manuscript and printed media outside the privy council and court. It is argued that disagreement about the direction of the war reveals differing contemporary responses to the legitimacy of the Dutch abjuration of Spanish sovereignty and the polity of the United Provinces, which have implications for our understanding of political mentalities in late Elizabethan England.

Defence date: 20 December 2016
Examining Board: Professor Luca Molà, European University Institute (Supervisor); Professor Fernando Marías, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and Real Academia de la Historia (External Supervisor); Professor Peter Cherry, Trinity College Dublin; Professor Simon Ditchfield, University of York
Awarded the James Kaye Memorial Prize for the Best Doctoral Thesis in History and Visuality 2018
This dissertation explores the modes of representation used by the ecclesiastical elites of early modern Catholicism to negotiate their roles as religious leaders, political ministers, cultural patrons and members of the aristocracy in the European courts. It examines the religious and artistic patronage of Cardinal Bernardo de Sandoval y Rojas (Aranda de Duero, 1546 – Toledo, 1618) during the reign of Philip III of Spain. Archbishop of Toledo, Inquisitor General and uncle of the king’s favourite minister, the Duke of Lerma, Sandoval was the leading ecclesiastic of the Spanish Monarchy and one of the richest and most powerful patrons of his time. Located at the crossroads between historical and art historical studies, this dissertation bridges this historiographical disjuncture by proposing an integrated approach that combines methodologies from the fields of art history, court studies and cultural history. The patronage of material and visual culture is here analysed as the result of the constant negotiation between Sandoval’s individual self and the wider contexts to which he belonged. Six chapters scrutinize a rich array of visual and material sources, together with manuscript and printed documents collected from over thirty archives, reconstructing the socio-political and religious contexts in which Cardinal Sandoval operated. In examining the family conflicts and political tensions encountered by post-Tridentine prelates, I demonstrate how the patronage of sacred art, holy relics, monastic institutions and religious texts operated beyond their fundamentally devotional objectives. This dissertation contributes to our understanding of early modern political culture by showing how religious and artistic patronage was a fundamental practice for shaping the rhetoric of piety with which ecclesiastical patrons negotiated their reputation.
Figures 8, 51-57, 147-149, 170-171, and 215-216 (corresponding with pages 402, 427-433, 489-491, 507, and 535-536), have been intentionally removed for copyright reasons. To view these images please refer to the printed version of this dissertation. Titles of the figures are below: • Figure 8. Alonso de la Fuente Montalbán, “Genealogía y Ascendencia del Illustrissimo señor don Bernardo de Sandoval y Rojas, Cardenal y Arçobispo de Toledo”, anteequem 1608, fol. 11. Madrid, Real Academia de la Historia, 9-398. At page 402 • Figure 51. Portico of the Sagrario Chapel. ©Matilde Grimaldi. At page 427 • Figure 52. West wall of the Sagrario Chapel.©Matilde Grimaldi. At page 428 • Figure 53. North wall of the Sagrario Chapel.©Matilde Grimaldi. At page 429 • Figure 54. East wall of the Sagrario Chapel.©Matilde Grimaldi. At page 430 • Figure 55. South wall of the Sagrario Chapel. ©Matilde Grimaldi. At page 431 • Figure 56. Dome of the Sagrario Chapel. ©Matilde Grimaldi. At page 432 • Figure 57. General scheme of the pictorial decoration of the Sagrario Chapel. At page 433 • Figure 147. Giovanni Battista Mucanzio, “Smi. D. N. Papae Acomnium S. R. E. Cardinalium nunc viventium. Elogia”,*1615, Rome, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, FB IV, 201. At page 489 • Figure 148. Giovanni Battista Mucanzio, “Smi. D. N. Papae Acomnium S. R. E. Cardinalium nunc viventium. Elogia”,*1615, fol. 37r. Rome,Archivio Segreto Vaticano, FB IV, 201. At page 490 • Figure 149. Giovanni Battista Mucanzio, “Smi. D. N. Papae Acomnium S. R. E. Cardinalium nunc viventium. Elogia”,*1615, fol. 36v. Rome, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, FB IV, 201. At page 491 • Figure 170. Cardinal Sandoval y Rojas, lead medal, 1616 Madrid, Museo Arqueológico Nacional, 1993_80_431e3eID001. Photo: Ángel Martínez Levas (N.I.(1993/80/431e3). At page 507 • Figure 171. Our Lady of El Sagrario, Lead medal, 1616. Madrid, Museo Arqueológico Nacional, 1993_80_431e3eID002. Photo: Ángel Martínez Levas((N.I.(1993/80/431e3). At page 507 • Figure 215. Angelo Nardi, The Crowning with Thorns, c. 1619-1620. Alcalá de Henares, San Bernardo. At page 535 • Figure 216. Angelo Nardi, The Miracle of the Five Loaves and Two Fishes, c. 1619-1620. Alcalá de Henares, San Bernardo. At page 536