by Henry Kamen
His first and most enduring enthusiasm was for the work of Titian. In Italy, in Augsburg and from Brussels, he commissioned several paintings. Some of the most famous portraits of Charles V and Philip were done at this time. The most significant canvases of the early period were the series known as ‘Poésies’, based on themes of classical mythology. The first of them, the intriguing Danae, was delivered to Philip in 1554, shortly before his departure for England. The last, the Diana and Actaeon and the Diana and Callisto, were received after his return to Spain in 1559. The sensuality of Titian's figures, the emphasis on the female nude, the preference for mythological themes, all appealed to a king who at this stage was captivated by the world of humanism and chivalry.58 There was no mystery about his preferences. A taste for sensuality was not exclusive to Philip; it was shared by other European courts as well. Titian continued painting for the king well after this. From about 1560, however, there was a change of mood. All further commissions were for exclusively religious subjects. Since we know that the king had not changed in outlook or character, the reason must be sought in the buildings for which the new paintings were intended. The earlier works were meant for the private leisure of the king, in his country houses at El Pardo and Valsaín. Many of the later works were public pieces. Titian's Last Supper (1564), for instance, was meant for the Escorial. Meanwhile, Philip had immeasurably enriched his collection of Titians with the paintings he inherited from his father and from Mary of Hungary. The Italian master remained always one of Philip's favourite artists.
Among the accomplished painters who attracted the king's favour was Antonis Mor. The Brussels-based artist had done a portrait of the prince in 1549. When he returned to the Netherlands six years later Philip adopted him as court painter and invited him to Spain. Mor made three visits. No fewer than fifteen of his works came to hang in El Pardo, and the artist ranked as high as Titian in the king's favour.59 In the same decade Philip also invited to his court the Italian sculptor Pompeio Leoni and his son Leone. The latter's son Pompeio became in the 1580s official court sculptor of the king. The priority given to Flemish and Italian art in Philip's court can be seen by the roll-call of artists who visited Spain. They included Gianbattista Bergamasco, Anton van Wyngaerde, Luca Cambiaso and Federigo Zuccaro. All the Italian artists were brought in to decorate the Escorial. Among the last of them was Pellegrino Tibaldi, who laboured at the Escorial between 1588 and 1594.
In some matters the king had a decided preference for things Flemish. His collection of paintings by Bosch is an example. He owned at least one work by Bosch in 1564, adding more in subsequent years. Most of the Boschs were hung in the Escorial, though several were to be found in the Pardo, along with works by Mor and Titian.60 The Flemish artist's primitive style, and his obvious moralising, seem to have been the aspects which appealed to the king. The librarian and historian of the Escorial, José de Sigüenza, defended the king's taste for Bosch. The artist, he said, presented ‘a satire in paint on the sins of men’.61 Philip was not unique in his appreciation of this artist. Bosch had a certain popularity in Spain and his works were copied by Spaniards.62 But for other types of work, such as frescos, the king was more inclined to use Italians.63
Peninsular artists were not absent from this gallery. From the 1550s the Valencian painter Alonso Sánchez Coello, who had studied with Mor in Brussels, began to produce portraits of members of the royal family.64 Philip set aside special apartments for him and his family in the Alcázar, and loved to slip in unannounced to see the painter at work. Alonso produced a large number of accomplished canvases, and found the time to father eleven children. Royal favour was also extended to Coello's pupil Juan Pantoja de la Cruz. Another favourite of Philip's among the Spanish painters was Juan Fernández de Navarrete, ‘the dumb (el Mudo)’.
An obvious absentee from the list of artists the king patronised was El Greco. Shortly after his return from Portugal in 1583 Philip had to decide on the future of a large canvas which El Greco delivered to the Escorial in November 1582. Its theme was The Martyrdom of St Maurice. According to a friar who was present, the king rejected the painting (on which the artist had been working for two years) because of its exaggerated emphasis on the figures in the foreground.65 The rejection excluded El Greco thereafter from the ambit of royal patronage.
By the sheer volume of their output, the artists contributed enormously to the grandeur and standing of the king. Philip established a completely new norm for collectors, thanks to the resources at his disposal and the variety of realms over which he reigned. At the time of his death there were about 1,150 major paintings in the Escorial, and 300 in the Alcázar of Madrid.66
Philip's close collaboration with Juan de Herrera is perhaps the clearest illustration of the contact between patron and artist. In the 1560s Herrera was doing minor work for the crown. From 1572 he was put in charge of the development of the Escorial, and assigned tasks on other sites. Seven years later, the king appointed him his royal architect. For over thirty years he worked closely as Philip's servant, obediently carrying out instructions but also imposing his stamp on the architecture of Spain. He died in 1597, a few months before his king.
Herrera, under the king's direction, gave a unique character to the royal building programme.67 In the Alcázar of Toledo, which he modified, he offered a structure of simplicity but also of authority and power. When the king was in Lisbon, he planned and constructed the new royal palace overlooking the harbour. He extended his style to non-royal buildings, such as the merchants' exchange, the Lonja, in Seville. But it was the Escorial which most typefied his style and his relationship with Philip.
Thanks to their partnership, architecture in Spain seemed to become an integral aspect of royal policy. Philip was no theorist, and nursed no dreams of grandeur. Simplicity and frugality were among his most basic principles.68 But he also wished to give Spain the quality that other monarchies already possessed. When he was in Brussels he sent his architect Gaspar de Vega to France to spy out the new buildings of the Louvre and Fontainebleau.69 It was in public building that the policy aspect of the king's preferences could be most clearly seen. In 1573 he issued to the authorities in America a set of Ordinances which they were to follow in planning new cities. The directive shows his wish for order and simplicity: cities must be practical and beautiful, not mere expressions of power.70 He attempted to transform the directive into reality for his own capital, Madrid, but was frustrated above all by lack of money.
*
The ‘court’ in Madrid had several functions.71 At the centre was the king, served by his household. There were satellite households, of the queen, the Infantas, and other immediate members of the royal family. Their combined personnel, adding on the staff in the stables and the guards, amounted to a small army. The theatre of their activities was the enlarged and reformed Alcázar. The king as chief actor brought three other spheres of activity into this scenario: the functioning of government, the management of diplomacy and ritual, and the direction of public entertainment. Fixing the king's residence in Madrid gave for the first time in Spain's history a permanent location for all these functions. But Philip never intended to be tied down to this centralisation of the court.
Since the adoption of Burgundian ceremonial in 1548 the size of the royal household had grown enormously. The main component was the king's household, divided into five main units: household, kitchen, chapel, stables and cellar. Each unit was headed by a nobleman in charge of its administration. The household guard formed an additional unit. Other immediate members of the royal family had smaller households, all financed by the king. The most drastic innovation of these years was the large and expensive retinue which Elizabeth Valois brought and insisted on maintaining, although many of the servants were sent home a few weeks later. The Venetian ambassador felt that it was because ‘the Frenchmen were very ill-dressed, dirty, careless and disrespectful’.72 Elizabeth's demands inflated the queen's household into an entity almost as large as that of
the king.
Burgundian ceremonial at court was exacting in theory, but less so in practice. It was modified by the king's own impatience with etiquette and his preference for a simpler life. The king's regular movement between his palaces also made it impractical to move all the personnel every time. The court of Philip consequently had little of the rigidity and formality which scholars have identified with later kings of Spain.73
Castilians continued to express a dislike of the new Burgundian ceremonial. Many objected to the expense. The ceremonial also seemed to distance the king from his subjects. The Cortes of Valladolid in 1558 asked the king to change it for ‘the usages and customs of Castile’, made a similar request in 1580, and in 1593 was still persistently demanding that the crown abolish these usages which ‘are foreign, not ours’.74 But Philip was no devotee of formality. Significant moves, in accord with the king's own preferences, were made towards a simpler public life-style. The Cortes of Madrid in 1562 petitioned the crown over nobles who dressed extravagantly and banqueted to excess. Their meals were described as ‘damaging to the body, a cause of illnesses, and prejudicial to their souls’. One consequence was the important sumptuary law, issued at Monzón in October 1563, controlling the public dress of both men and women.75
The king's court in his last dozen years suffered from a lack of social gaiety, due in part to the king's poor health, in part to his absences and travels. But for the first twenty-five years of the reign there was no lack of vitality. There is no evidence for the totally mythical picture, still current, of a royal recluse.76 Three factors explain the vigorous life of the royal circle. Most nobles took the court seriously; the queens contributed enormously to social life; and the king himself had an active interest in music and entertainment. It is simply untrue to imagine that the court was lugubrious.77
No European court could exist without a client nobility. The Spanish nobles continued to have immense military and economic resources, but these were threatened by rising costs and a high death-rate among heirs. The court offered hope, because it presented the chance of employment and influence, as well as contacts which could lead to marriage. For those who liked such things, there was also the life-style, a welcome relief after the monotony of the provinces. As Madrid grew, more and more nobles gravitated there. ‘It is terrible,’ the king commented, ‘that they all want to leave their estates and become residents of the court.’78 A courtly society came into existence, with its own special rules and, later, its own literature. The court of the king, like the courts of the great nobility, was a theatre not only of ritual but also of entertainment, leisure and diversion.79 But Philip had no delusions of grandeur. He never insisted on creating, as Louis XIV did later in France, a scenario in which he was the centre of all attention. He allowed his great nobles to do their own thing. The duke of Infantado, for example, presided over his own little court in Guadalajara, and seldom came to Madrid.80 Philip tolerated this, and instead made courtesy visits to the duke whenever he passed through Guadalajara.
The contribution of the queens to court life was fundamental. Elizabeth of Valois from the beginning tried to reproduce the gaiety (and, in some measure, the decadence) of the Renaissance court she had left behind. She enjoyed parties, masked balls, buffoonery, spectacles, outings to her palaces, and picnics. Ecclesiastical Toledo did not quite offer the environment for all this, and she took a dislike to the city. In jousts, she played the part of liege lady to the three young court princes: Don Carlos, Don Juan of Austria, and the prince of Parma. It gave them a romantic scenario which in turn influenced their chivalric ideals. Elizabeth also contributed to the cultural life of court by her love of music, plays and art: she extended her personal patronage to Sánchez Coello and to the Italian Sofonisba. Anna's role was more subdued and coincided more closely with that of Philip. In the absences of the king's court, the queens had their own social life in Madrid. Anna loved comedies. In February 1571, she ‘enjoyed herself in the apartments of the princess [Juana] at a comedy that she ordered to be performed there. At four in the afternoon the Infantas went to join the queen and enjoyed the play as though they were much older.’81
The king's sisters also played a crucial role. When the empress María came to reside in Madrid, she contributed powerfully to the prestige of a city which, during Philip's absence in Lisbon, had no king. She set herself up in apartments in the convent of the Descalzas, where she periodically put on musical entertainments.82 All visiting dignitaries to Madrid were obliged by protocol to make a formal visit to the empress before calling on any other official.
Philip's love of entertainment was profound. The top place in his agenda went to rites of chivalry. In his youth as well as during his years abroad, he had delighted in jousts and tourneys. The Amadis of Gaul was one of his favourite books (he later approved it as a set text for his son Philip when the latter began to learn French).83 Whenever possible, he presided over tournaments at court. Early in February 1566, for example, a small joust on foot was put on in his presence. Those who took part were young nobles, including the archduke Ernst and Don Juan. In the afternoon of Mardi Gras, three weeks later, a more formal tourney was held in the fields just outside Madrid. Eight grandees were the participants. ‘They fought first with lances, and then afterwards with swords.’ The whole court and many others came to see it and the king and queen watched until nightfall.84 The king could not always be present at tournaments, which the nobles put on frequently for themselves. His permission, however, was normally required for those held in the capital.
On principal feasts there was always music and dancing and celebration. The king took a close interest in the music of the royal chapels. The Flemish chapel was headed by a number of specially imported composers, of whom the most significant (in residence after 1588) was Philippe Rogier.85 Ill-health after the 1570s was Philip's only reason for not taking part in festivities. He encouraged, and attended, musical presentations.86
By contrast, he had no great fondness for the theatre, though he dutifully sat through performances. On one occasion he admitted to his confessor Chaves that ‘I never liked comedies’.87 It was no doubt his detached attitude to the theatre that freed him from then current prejudices about women on stage. In 1587 he warned his council that if boys were to be employed in the role of women, it did not make sense to ban them using make-up. Why could women not be allowed to act? he asked. Their husbands could chaperone them.88 His initiative resulted in women being allowed on the stage in Madrid from that year.89
It is likely that the king had little time for private reading. Although he had an impressive library, like many book-lovers he had scant opportunity to study the books. Until the 1580s he preferred to spend all his leisure time in the company of his family and the environment of his palaces and gardens. According to the Venetian ambassador in 1563, he was capable of dropping business completely and going off with a small number of people to spend several days ‘in extreme tranquillity and rest’.90 These periods were never spent lazily. If he was not hunting, he was fishing. When the fish-lakes at Aranjuez were eventually stocked, he went there frequently.
A possibly unique aspect of Philip's court, setting it apart from all others, was the frequent absence of the king. Other monarchs, such as Elizabeth of England, developed courts which were closely identified with their persons. This did not happen in Spain. Though he respected its formalities, Philip disliked the fripperies and courtesies of protocol. There had been no proper court in the days of Ferdinand and Isabella, and his father had never been around long enough to create one. The adoption of the Burgundian ceremonial, and the choice of a permanent capital, were factors that might have helped powerfully to create a full-blooded court under Philip. In the event, constant movement from residence to residence deprived the royal circle of the continuity which was essential for the development of a Versailles.
Another notable defect in the court of Philip was its cultural level. The Venetian ambassadors sharply criticised it for being
ignorant and unlettered.91 By comparison, Madrid may well have appeared less cosmopolitan than London or Blois or Rome. Many great artists came and went, but there was no continuous cultural atmosphere worthy of the world's most powerful monarch. There were a good number of highly cultured nobles, and culturally distinguished ladies, but if they had salons92 they held them at the fringes of court life.93
The essential feature of the ‘court’ in Madrid was the royal household. If the king was away, he took most of his household with him. This turned the Alcázar into an empty shell, populated only by its staff, some government officials, and the household of any remaining member of the royal family. Only the presence of other royal persons helped to preserve the vitality of social life. In 1578 an ambassador observed that many nobles who came to Madrid in order to serve the king kept away because of the high costs of staying in a king-less city.94 This in its turn affected the whole capital. Madrid during Philip's absences tended to turn into a den of bored nobles who, starved of the activity offered by the court's presence, dedicated themselves to gambling, womanising and night revels.95 By the 1580s the situation had deteriorated to such a point that Philip set up a three-man committee for moral reformation, consisting of cardinal Quiroga of Toledo, the president of Castile (and chief judge of the realm) the count of Barajas, and his own confessor Father Chaves. In November 1586, for example, one of the problems the committee had to deal with was the notorious night-life of the young duke of Feria, who dedicated himself to gaming and low women.96