Arte y magnificencia en la construcción de la imagen de poder femenino a comienzos de la Edad Modernala reina Catalina de Aragón y la cultura del Renacimiento

Abstract

Queen Catherine of Aragon (1485-1536) is one of the most famous European historical figures in the beginning of the XVIth century. She was the youngest daughter of Queen Isabel of Castile and King Fernando of Aragon. Throughout her childhood she witnessed momentous events that changed European history transforming the Spanish Monarchy into a global empire. Furthermore, she was formally educated by the Italian humanist Alessandro Geraldini in a time when the Iberian Peninsula was experimenting a revolution in the arts and culture imbued by the Renaissance and Humanist currents. In the last decade, several studies have highlighted important aspects of these formative years, but they have not been linked to her role as Queen consort in England. This dissertation addresses her role as patron of Renaissance art and culture and as constructor of the image of female power in Europe in the beginning of the Modern Era. During her life in England, Catherine witnessed the consolidation of the Tudor dynasty in the throne to which she contributed decisively especially concerning the perception of women in power. In her reign with King Henry VIII, the arts and culture in the English court were transformed and opened to innovative ideas linked to Renaissance and Humanism. However, Queen Catherine’s patronage transcended England and influenced Renaissance culture. This is particularly evident in the case of female education. Despite the damnatio memoriæ process she suffered when the monarch decided to annul their marriage and erase her legacy, her role as transformer of the perception of women in Tudor England had a major consequence for her daughter because the first Queen Regnant in the history of the realm in 1553. A contextual methodology was applied to achieve this goal using her artistic and intellectual education as a comparison point to the innovations in the Tudor court that were introduced during the period in which she was influential and that expanded from 1505 to 1527. This methodology analyses well-known aspects of her patronage like the commission to Juan Luis Vives of the work De institutione foemniæ Chrtistianæ published in 1523. But there are other aspects of art and culture in which Queen Catherine of Aragon had an important impact in England that expand from intercontinental exploration to the patronage of the first artists from Flanders to introduce Renaissance court portraiture into England. Prominent amongst these is painter Susanna Horenbout praised by figures like Albrecht Dürer and Giorgio Vasari. The Horenbouts were also in charge of teaching Hans Holbein the Younger the workings of court portraiture. Holbein arrived in England in 1526 and his first work for the Tudor Monarchy was part of a propaganda campaign designed by “court of defence” of the Queen Consort. Catherine’s agency was also crucial for the reception of a great number of works of art in the Tudor collection especially of portraits of her family members and dynastic allies that conformed the first royal portrait galleries in the palaces of Whitehall and St. James. These are some of the many aspects that Queen Catherine influenced in the Tudor court and in Renaissance art and culture in the beginning of XVIth century Europe.