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The first major study of the powerful Borromeo family of Milan in the seventeenth century, uncovering their growing entanglement with the Spanish monarchy, and the ways in which the Borromeo grappled with the ethical implications of this controversial relationship, repeatedly reinventing themselves to preserve their social privilege.
The Court Cities of Northern Italy examines painting, sculpture, decorative arts, and architecture produced within the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries.
This illustrated volume is a comprehensive survey of 17th century European tapestry. It features some of the finest surviving examples from many international collections, as well as a number of related designs and oil sketches.
Milan was for centuries the most important center of economic, ecclesiastical and political power in Lombardy. As the State of Milan it extended in the Renaissance over a large part of northern and central Italy and numbered over thirty cities with their territories. A Companion to Late Medieval and early Modern Milan examines the story of the city and State from the establishment of the duchy under the Viscontis in 1395 through to the 150 years of Spanish rule and down to its final absorption into Austrian Lombardy in 1704. It opens up to a wide readership a well-documented synthesis which is both fully informative and reflects current debate. 20 chapters by qualified and distinguished scho...
Royal Favouritism and the Governing Elite of the Spanish Monarchy, 1640-1665 presents a study of the later years of the reign of Philip IV from the perspective of his favourite (valido), don Luis Mendez de Haro, and of the other ministers who helped govern the Spanish Habsburg Monarchy. It offers a positive vision of a period that is often seen as one of failure and decline. Unlike his predecessors, Haro exercised the favour that he enjoyed in a discreet way, acting as a perfect courtier and honest broker between the king and his aristocratic subjects. Nevertheless, Alistair Malcolm also argues that the presence of a royal favourite at the head of the government of Spain amounted to a major ...
In A Europe of Courts, a Europe of Factions the contributors offer an analysis of the political groups of the most representative European courts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Transcending individual cases, this collection presents the first comparative overview of the phenomenon of court factionalism. Through original research and a critical approach, González Cuerva and Koller explore in depth the emergence, coexistence and image of court factions. This contribution to the debate on the nature of early modern policy-making is enriched with a European-wide focus, which allows comparison of the circumstantial and micropolitical factors accounting for the spread of factions and the conditions in which they functioned. It also allows partisan sources to be examined with the necessary caution. Contributors are Stefano Andretta, Janet Dickinson, Luc Duerloo, Pavel Marek, José Martínez Millán, Toby Osborne, David Potter, Jonathan Spangler, Evrim Türkçelik, and Maria Antonietta Visceglia.
Print, in the early modern period, could make or break power. This volume addresses one of the most urgent and topical questions in early modern history: how did European authorities use a new medium with such tremendous potential? The eighteen contributors develop new perspectives on the relationship between the rise of print and the changing relationships between subjects and rulers by analysing print’s role in early modern bureaucracy, the techniques of printed propaganda, genres, and strategies of state communication. While print is often still thought of as an emancipating and disruptive force of change in early modern societies, the resulting picture shows how instrumental print was in strengthening existing power structures. Contributors: Renaud Adam, Martin Christ, Jamie Cumby, Arthur der Weduwen, Nora Epstein, Andreas Golob, Helmer Helmers, Jan Hillgärtner, Rindert Jagersma, Justyna Kiliańczyk-Zięba, Nina Lamal, Margaret Meserve, Rachel Midura, Gautier Mingous, Ernesto E. Oyarbide Magaña, Caren Reimann, Chelsea Reutchke, Celyn David Richards, Paolo Sachet, Forrest Strickland, and Ramon Voges.
Early modern Venice was an exceptional city. Located at the intersection of trade routes and cultural borders, it teemed with visitors, traders, refugees and intellectuals. It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that such a city should foster groups and individuals of unorthodox beliefs, whose views and life styles would bring them into conflict with the secular and religious authorities. Drawing on a vast store of primary sources - particularly those of the Inquisition - this book recreates the social fabric of Venice between 1640 and 1740. It brings back to life a wealth of minor figures who inhabited the city, and fostered ideas of dissent, unbelief and atheism in the teeth of the Counter-Refo...
The Society of Jesus was founded by Ignatius Loyola on a principal of strict obedience to papal and superiors’ authorities, yet the nature of the Jesuits's work and the turbulent political circumstances in which they operated, inevitably brought them into conflict with the Catholic hierarchy. In order to better understand and contextualise the debates concerning obedience, this book examines the Jesuits of south-western Europe during the generalate of Claudio Acquaviva. Acquaviva’s thirty year generalate (1581-1615) marked a challenging time for the Jesuits, during which their very system of government was called into doubt. The need for obedience and the limits of that obedience posed a...
This text offers a collective exploration of aspects of cross-border and transnational interaction in the Holy Roman Empire.