Court Culture and Pageantry of the ‘Spanish Nation’ in Florence

Abstract

The organization of Florentine life in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, following the marriage of Alexander and Margaret, daughter of Emperor Charles V, and the subsequent union of Cosme and Eleanor of Toledo in 1539, was characterized by a high level of exchange between the Spanish Habsburgs, the imperial line, and the Medici dynasty. This article highlights some emblematic aspects of these relationships, such as the spectacles staged for the weddings of Eleanor, Joanna of Austria and Maria Magdalene respectively, the numerous Spanish comedy actors in Florence and their theatre in the old market, and the participation of the Spanish nobility (the ‘Spanish nation’) in the spectacles at the Medici court. We offer a case study of the family of Don Antonio Ramírez de Montalvo, largely uninvestigated till now, who with his sons was involved in staging public court spectacles. The discovery of an unknown dramatic repertoire of scenes from the Commedia dell’Arte, preserved in an administrative register of the Montalvo estate, not only reinforces the evidence on the presence of Spanish comedy actors in Florence but also opens the hypothesis that the Palazzo Montalvo also housed a theatre and an academic association of high-level performance.