La Respuesta

The Feminist Press at CUNY has brought out Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, The Answer/La Respuesta: Expanded Edition Including Sor Filotea’s Letter and New Selected Poems, trans. Electa Arenal and Amanda Powell.

Urban Planning in the Baroque Spanish World

There are three essays in Embodiments of Power: Building Baroque Cities in Europe, ed. Gary B. Cohen and Franz A. J. Szabo (Berghahn, 2008), that focus on cities in Spain or its empire.

Thomas Dandelet, “Searching for the New Constantine: Early Modern Rome as a Spanish Imperial City,” argues that Rome’s revival in the 16th century sprang from its new dependence on the Spanish monarchy. Spain supported Rome by providing peace, funds for building projects like St. Peter’s, immigration to replenish its population, and Spanish backing for papal claims of political and ecclesiastical legitimacy. Charles V and his successors through Carlos II were the new Constantines that Rome needed to refound itself as a great urban capital and stage.

John A. Marino, “The Zodiac in the Streets: Inscribing ‘Buon Governo’ in Baroque Naples,” describes how processions in Naples to mark the feast of St. John the Baptist were designed to reinforce the idea of good government by the Spanish viceroys, and how these processions broke down during the 17th century, mirroring the breakdown of Spanish authority in general.

David Ringrose, “A Setting for Royal Authority: The Reshaping of Madrid, Sixteenth-Eighteenth Centuries,” argues that during the 16th century, Spanish monarchs left Madrid alone, preferring to assert their authority through temporary displays during entrance processions, in the tradition of peripatitic medieval kings. It was not until the 18th century, really, when new forms of sociability arose among the elite that the Bourbon monarchs, especially Carlos III, redesigned Madrid in a permanent way through buildings and broad avenues (paseos) designed to incorporate that sociability with royal authority.

Casey, “Family and Community” – Now in Paper

Cambridge UP has brought out a paperback version of James Casey, Family and Community in Early Modern Spain: The Citizens of Granada, 1570-1739.

2 New Books from Brill

Conversos and Moriscos in Late Medieval Spain and Beyond, Vol 1: Departures and Change, ed. Kevin Ingram.

Marcelo J. Borges, Chains of Gold: Portuguese Migration to Argentina in Translatlantic Perspective.

Reviews: AHR, June 09 – Updated

No articles, but a featured review and other, regular book reviews.

In a featured review, Ricardo Padrón reviews Nicolás Wey Gómez, The Tropics of Empire: Why Columbus Sailed South to the Indies.

Arnold Bauer reviews Marcy Norton, Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures: A History of Tobacco and Chocolate in the Atlantic World.

Antonio Barrera-Osorio reviews Stuart B. Schwartz, All Can Be Saved: Religious Toleration and Salvation in the Iberian Atlantic World.

Michael J. Levin reviews Daniel A. Crews, Twilight of the Renaissance: The Life of Juan de Valdés.

Update: here’s one I missed at first: Edward Behrend-Martínez reviews Maya Shatzmiller, Her Day in Court: Women’s Property Rights in Fifteenth-Century Granada.

(Links to reviews requires registration.)

Reviews: Journal of Modern History, June ‘09

No articles for us in this June’s Journal of Modern History, but two reviews:

Fabio López-Lázaro reviews Ruth MacKay, “Lazy, Improvident People”: Myth and Reality in the Writing of Spanish History.

Christopher Schmidt-Nowara reviews Jeremy Adelman, Sovereignty and Revolution in the Iberian Atlantic.

(Link to reviews require subscription.)

Elliott: Spain, Europe and the Wider World

Yale UP has brought out a new collection of J. H. Elliott’s essays, Spain, Europe, and the Wider World 1500-1800. At least one is previously unpublished.

Reviews: Hispania: Revista Española de Historia

Here are the reviews for us from Hispania: Revista Española de Historia, Vol 69, No. 231.:

David Alonso García reviews Comercio y hombres de negocios en Castilla y Europa en tiempos de Isabel la Católica, ed. H. Casado Alonso and A. García-Baquero.

Luis Ribot reviews Jesús María de Usunáriz, España y sus tratados internacionales: 1516-1700.

Eloy Martín Corrales reviews Luis Alberto Anaya Hernández, Moros en la costa: dos siglos de corsarismo berberisco en la Islas Canarias (1569-1749).

Miguel Ángel Echevarría Bacigalupe reviews Ángel Alloza Aparicio, Europe en el mercado Español. Mercaderes, represalias, y contrabando en el siglo XVII.

Tamar Herzog reviews Enrique García Hernán, Consejero de ambos mundos. Vida y obra de Juan de Solórzano Pereira (1575-1655).

Friedrich Edelmayer reviews Max Sebastián Hering Torres, Rassismus in der Vormoderne. Die “Reinheit des Blutes” im Spanien der Frühen Neuzeit.

Rafael Valladares reviews Alejandro López Álvarez, Poder, lujo, y conflicto en la Corte de los Austrias. Coches, carrozas y sillas de mano, 1550-1700.

Hispania, Vol 69, no. 231

Here are the relevant articles of Hispania: Revista Española de Historia:

Julián Clemente Ramos, “Paisaje agrario y sociedad rural en Holguera (siglos XIII-XVI).”

and José Fco. Pérez Berenguel, “Los fuentes principales de los Viajes de por España (1779) de Henry Swinburn.”

Coolidge on Noblemens’ Mistresses: SCSC 09, Geneva

The other very good paper I heard while at the Sixteenth Century Studies Conference in Geneva was Grace Coolidge’s “Masculinity and the Noble Mistress in Early Modern Spain.” Looking through wills and other legal documents that shed light on the family, Coolidge finds a number of noblemen acknowledging, and providing for, mistresses and illegitimate children. Mistresses become less and less visible in these documents as the 16th century moves on, perhaps thanks to the impact of religious reform. Coolidge argues, interestingly, that the performance of masculinity depended on the participation of women. Having a mistress could either help or harm a man in his attempt to assert his masculinity. Fathering an illegitimate child could counter suspicions of impotence, for example, but fathering too many could indicate a negligant attitude towards the future of one’s estate. This paper marks the beginning of a larger project for Coolidge on women who were noblemens’ mistresses.