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The article presents information on a variety of topics, including the identification of Ahkas of Central Africa as the smallest people of the world, need for a growing tree to be cut down for the art of paper-making and the decree of Philip II of Spain that a proposal for a canal across the Isthmus of Panama should not be undertaken.

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In this response, we demonstrate that Mauricio Drelichman and Hans-Joachim Voth, in their 2015 Economic History Review note 'Duplication without constraints: Álvarez-Nogal and Chamley's analysis of debt policy under Philip II', provide a misconceived and inaccurate account of our argument about the finances of Philip II in 'Debt policy under constraints: Philip II, the Cortes, and Genoese bankers' ( Economic History Review, 2014). Here, we summarize our position in the context of the current literature and provide a few comments on data gathering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

Copyright of Quintana: Revista do Departamento de Historia da Arte USC is the property of Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Servicio de Publicaciones and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Manuscrits: Revista d'Historia Moderna is the property of Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Humans have introduced species out of their native areas for millennia, and characterising these historical introductions can provide insights into the long‐term progress of invasion processes. Here, archival sources and other historical documents are used to describe the motivations, negotiations and actions leading to fish and crayfish introductions into Spain in the second half of the 16th century. King Philip II of Spain brought to the Iberian Peninsula several gardening customs from central Europe, including the construction of fish ponds and their stocking with different aquatic species, many of which were naturally absent from Iberia. These interests led to the introduction of pike (Esox Lucius, Esocidae), common carp (Cyprinus carpio, Cyprinidae), tench (Tinca tinca, Cyprinidae) and Italian crayfish (Austropotamobius italicus, Astacidae). Historical documents allowed describing introduction events, their early management and their outcomes with high temporal, spatial and taxonomic precision. These results introduce a centuries‐long view on the history of the presence of these introduced species in the Iberian Peninsula, where they have all been successful invaders in different historical periods. This work exemplifies the large potential of archival documents to inform about long‐term human–nature relationships, with implications for present‐day environmental management (e.g. setting conservation targets). However, this potential has been only sparsely explored, arguably due to the lack of interactions between humanities and natural sciences. Interdisciplinary historical ecology research should be promoted in order to build robust and applicable knowledge on the long‐term variability of ecosystems and their biota. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

This paper examines lending by a Genoese-led cartel to Philip II of Spain (1556-98) from the perspective of theory on sovereign debt. Models in this literature suggest that the Genoese linked specie deliveries from Spain to the Low Countries to lending in order to create a penalty to enforce their loans. The king tried to renege, the Genoese applied the penalty, and the king ultimately repaid. When the episode is used to examine theory, the Crown's observed debt ceiling and estimates of its cost of enduring the penalty and its ability to repay are in line with predictions of Bulow and Rogoff. The nature of the penalty has the flavor of Cole and Kehoe's model; its observation on the "path of play" is suggestive of Atkeson's model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses efforts of King Philip II of Spain for promotion of royal sites, starting with the construction of Casa del Bosque in Valsaín, Segovia. Topics discussed include connections between Flanders, Italy and Spain in the context of the gardens as a cultural interlinks of the Habsburg empire; renovation of the house and its garden in Casa del Campo, Spain; and view of the Casa del Campo in the Félix Castello painting.

Copyright of History Studies (13094688) is the property of History Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article analyzes two sixteenth-century proposals for a library that would be placed under the control of the king of Spain and accessible to the public. The first is Juan Páez de Castro's 1556 Memorial, often read as a blueprint for the institution that Philip II eventually founded at El Escorial. The second is Juan Bautista Cardona's Traza for El Escorial, addressed to the king in 1579, when that project was already in progress. Páez and Cardona dreamed of a library that would overcome the dangers of loss and dispersion associated with collections owned by flesh-and-bone individuals destined to die at some point. This article will show that Páez and Cardona drew inspiration from previous and ongoing projects in Italy, France, and Spain to conclude that the preservation and dissemination of books required the association with a printing press. This was a plan that, to the chagrin of Cardona's contemporaries, failed to adequately materialize for El Escorial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the Spanish humanist Juan Páez de Castro (1510-1570) an empire was only as good as its library. In his ambitious Memorial sobre las librerias (ca. 1556) he hoped to convince the recently crowned Phillip II to found a public library to serve the many needs of the Spanish monarchy. This article analyzes the goals of his scheme and its relationship to imperial governance. Knowledge coming from Spain's New World domains had a fundamental place in Páez de Castro's scheme. The library would gather materials from all the crowns under the jurisdiction of the Spanish king, organize them into categories and integrate the Old and New Worlds into a single comprehensive narrative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Historia Económica / Journal of Iberian & Latin American Economic History is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Carlos Álvarez- Nogal and Christophe Chamley recently published an article in the Economic History Review on ' Debt policy under constraints: Philip II, the Cortes, and Genoese bankers'. In this note, we show that several claims in their article are very similar to earlier research results, published or circulated long before Álvarez- Nogal and Chamley's original submission, by ourselves and other scholars (section I). These results are repeated without attribution or even mention of the earlier work. In addition, we show that what Álvarez- Nogal and Chamley present as new quantitative insights are actually replications of earlier results of ours (section II). Finally, Álvarez- Nogal and Chamley misrepresent our contributions, as well as those of several other scholars (section III). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the historiography of Juzgado General de Indios's institutionalization and indigenous justice by Spain's King Philip II. Various topics discussed include petition written by Mexican lieutenant Bustamante de Andrada in April 1587 over the tripartite relationship between Americans, access of Spain's Royal Courts by indigenous people and reformation of the justice in 1581.

What sustained borrowing without third-party enforcement in the early days of sovereign lending? Philip II of Spain accumulated towering debts while stopping all payments to his lenders four times. How could the sovereign borrow much and default often? We argue that bankers' ability to cut off Philip II's access to smoothing services was key. A form of syndicated lending created cohesion among his Genoese bankers. As a result, lending moratoria were sustained through a 'cheat-the-cheater' mechanism. Our article thus lends empirical support to a recent literature that emphasises the role of bankers' incentives for continued sovereign borrowing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the treaties and official relationship between Spain and Portugal in the sixteenth century. Philip II of Spain was the first Spanish king to also hold dominion over Portugal and its empire although he told his people that the countries would be kept separate according to the Treaty of Tordesillas. Although such lines were sometimes blurred during the Union of the Crowns, the article looks particularly at how the law effected the colonial pursuits of each nation. The article traces the history of each countries expansion overseas into Africa during the fifteenth century. The sailor Christopher Columbus sailed for Portugal before gaining the patronage of Spain and the voyages of sailor Vasco da Gama were also on behalf of Spain.

Traditionally, Philip II's massive relic collection preserved in the palace-monastery of the Escorial has been interpreted as a testimony to the Spanish king's devotion to the cult of saints, and a proof of his support for the principles of the Tridentine Church. This essay explores some of Philip II's more political and symbolic uses of relics, and studies their role in the construction of a monarchical, spiritual, and national identity in sixteenth-century Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

El Escorial, a magnificent palace-monastery in central Spain, was the setting in 1990 for a meeting of ALS experts who developed a consensus document called the El Escorial ALS Diagnostic Criteria. El Escorial was originally conceived by the Spanish Habsburg monarch, Philip II (1527–1598), as an elaborate burial place for his parents, Emperor Charles V and Isabella. It soon became a symbol of the Spanish empire and Philip’s Catholic leadership of the Counter-Reformation. El Escorial included a monastery, palace, basilica, mausoleum, seminary, library, and hospital. Nothing was spared by Philip in obtaining the finest examples of religious art, architec- ture, music, and books. Philip, as absolute monarch, inherited a vast empire which stretched over Europe, Asia, North Africa, and the New World. His style of personal micro-management and poor economic planning hampered his ability to manage both national and foreign affairs. Philip had a special interest in medicine, including royal hospitals, improved government standards for physicians, medicinal plants, and the health benefits of alchemy and sacred relics. El Escorial’s grand scale has generated both illustrious praise and critical condemnation over the last four centuries. Its place in Spanish and world history is assured. (Amyot Lat Scler 1999; 1:55–62). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports on obstacles in the application by Spain's King Philip II of the policy of strategic terror to subdue the revolt in the Netherlands. Strategic value of flood the rebellious provinces; Philip's demonstrations of restraint; Devolution of the authority to prosecute the war.

A key issue in understanding artefacts from the past is the loss of readability of the signs they may have borne. The two 16th-century musical instruments studied here—rare Italian violins made by Andrea Amati (c.1505-1577) in Cremona—bear remains of painted heraldic emblems, which are barely legible and thus remained undeciphered until today. They are exemplary representatives of this research question, indeed combining various types of losses, which are widely encountered on archaeological artefacts: they are now incomplete (parts are missing, surfaces are abraded) and the paint matter itself, of which the signs are made, has altered. In this study, the complete original outlines and geometrical subdivisions of the shields are deduced from calculations based on the conventional heraldic construction practices of the times. Also, in situ elemental imaging of the shield areas—here using scanning X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy— brings two types of information: (i) the nature of pigments, allowing to deduce the initial colours of the paints not discernable to the eye, whether abraded or discoloured; (ii) the spatial distribution of these pigments and colours inside the shield. This multi-approach method leads to the unprecedented revelation of a combination of symbols (tinctures of fields, emblematic ornaments, and their relative spatial distribution), all having meanings in heraldic language. The reconstructed coats of arms appear to be pointing to a very specific nine-year period (1559–1568) of the life of the queen Elisabeth (Isabel) of Valois, spouse of Philip II of Spain. We suggest that this approach, combining an imaging spectroscopic technique and a geometrical study of remaining decors, here providing new insights into the musical history at the Court of Spain, may be used to enhance the readability of a wide range of writings, signs and symbols on artefacts from the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]