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Summary
During the sixteenth-century, the Monarchia Hispanica ruled by Philip II of Spain was Europe’s most powerful composite monarchy, with an empire that stretched from Europe to the Americas and South-East Asia. This power rested not simply upon wealth and military might, but was bolstered by an array of social, cultural and religious tools that were employed to legitimize, strengthen and build the king’s authority. Developing and exploring an important facet of this 'soft power', this book investigates ideas of empire and imperialism in the architecture, urbanism and culture of the Iberian Peninsula. It explores these ideas of empowerment through a number of case studies that reflect the way the ’centre’ of the empire was affected by the Universal Monarchy in line with scholarly works on Atlantic studies. Adopting a global - rather than a European-centred - perspective the book employs four case studies to reveal how Spain’s imperial expansion during the sixteenth century allowed Philip to project and communicate an image of himself as the monarch of a worldwide empire through art and architecture. Beginning with an introductory chapter outlining Philip II’s appreciation of art and architecture within the context the notion of empire developed at his court, the work is then divided into four sections. Part 1 ’Urban utopia’ looks at Madrid and the wider world, domestic architecture and Spanish imperial authority in the sixteenth century. Part 2. ’Ruling an empire through paper’ addresses the Simancas archive and the Habsburg network of information and archival repositories in Europe and beyond. Part 3 ’The Global Empire’ explores the Iberian Union and Philip II as Dominae Totis Orbis. Part 4 ’The Hall of Battles at El Escorial’ covers visual chronicles of warfare and the fame of the Universal Monarch. In all the book provides a substantial contribution to the field, charting the development of an image of empire and supremacy during Phili
