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In this joint paper Laura Muñoz Pérez and Trevor Dadson will examine the possibilities women had when participating in the cultural life at court, showing the relationships of patronage between noblewomen, women writers and other writers, and how this was also a way of promotion. Tied in with this will be an examination of the role of noblewomen in society at large, in particular the fact that they had more power and influence than is usually ascribed to them, especially but not solely if they were widows, when they often ended up running vast estates in the name of their eldest son (if they had one). Also, as ladies at court (‘damas de la reina’) these noblewomen had another form of influence, as they often acted as the eyes and ears of their fathers, brothers and husbands. The largely female court established around the Empress María of Austria in the Descalzas Reales in the early seventeenth century has been the subject of study, but the royal court under Philip III and Philip IV and the powerful women there still requires attention. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Faria e Sousa’s commentary toThe Lusiads(Madrid, 1639) still remains an important work of critical exegesis on the epic poem by Luis de Camões (Lisbon, 1572). In this paper, Julian Weiss and Catarina Fouto re-examine the significance of this work in the tradition of the Renaissance commentary and explore its relation to previous Spanish commentaries and translations of the text. Our interest in this commentary lies in our previous research into the political uses of Iberian commentary, and in the relation between translation and diplomacy. Crucially, the liminary texts which precede the Spanish translations published in the year of the annexation of Portugal (1580) transformThe Lusiadsinto a celebration of Philip III's imperial expansion and shape the reception of Camões’ epic by their European readers. Faria e Sousa responds to these attempts to colonize the text and to represent Portuguese as a language of inferior culture by engaging with the Iberian tradition of Renaissance commentary and the Spanish translations and commentaries to the epic of Camões. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper I propose analysing the concepts of discovery and conquest, especially the latter, because its use varies in legal documents, which started with the Reyes Católicos, concerning the treatment of Spaniards toward Indians. The crucial point in my analysis will concern the discussion about the nature of the concept of conquest, its relationship with that of just war and the ethics of its application by the participants in the Controversia de Valladolid (1550-51): Bartolomé de las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda. The end point of my analysis is 1563, in the reign of Philip II, and the analysis is based on the lexical uses of these concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between two seated portraits of Philip II of Spain (1527–1598), one an oil sketch and one apparently the finished portrait derived from the sketch. Thus far, the two portraits have been attributed to Titian (Tiziano Vecellio, ca. 1488–1576). However, an analysis of each painting's style, chronology, and provenance challenges the nature of the paintings' relationship to one another and defies the attribution of the finished portrait to Titian. Franz von Lenbach (1836–1904), one of the leading portraitists in nineteenth-century Germany and a superior copyist of Old Master paintings, particularly those by Titian, instead emerges as the pivotal figure uniting the paintings and is here proposed as the author of the finished portrait. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article the conflicts and alliances between different Dukes of Pastrana, lords of a Grandee household, and their relatives are analysed from two viewpoints. The first perspective shows how litigation between early-modern aristocratic siblings for family inheritance was a very common phenomenon. Secondly, litigious kin were allies in the political and social arena. With these features in mind, this paper provides an explanation of aristocratic behaviour as the consequence of the composite nature of aristocratic identity and the two juridical bodies used by the elites. According to this juridical theory, sovereigns were juridically composed of two bodies. The first one was political, representing eternal royalty. The second one was natural, meaning the physical person of each king. As will be stated in the article, this royal conception of the two bodies was adopted by the nobility and played an important role in aristocratic family conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]