Poetry, Reading, and the Trilingual Question in Early Modern Spain

Abstract

In Madrid, in 1603, there appeared, at the press of Luis Sanchez, a Libro de las honras que hizo el Colegio de la Compania de Jesus de Madrid de la Emperatriz dona Maria de Austria fundadora del dicho Colegio, que se celebraron a 21 de abril de 1603. This book expressed the Jesuits’ grief for the death of their benefactor, Maria of Austria; sister of Felipe II; widow of the Emperor Maximilian of Austria; daughter of Emperor Charles V; mother of Rudolph II. The Jesuits’ Colegio Imperial was established in this town in 1572, thanks to Maria de Austria’s generous donation. The book, apart from a description of the display done for the Empress’s last honors in the church at the Jesuits’ School in Madrid, includes texts of prayer and funeral sermon in Latin in which the Empress’s virtues and generosity are praised. Jose Simon Diaz1 frames the book in a particular historical background. The Jesuit College aimed to be the most advanced school in Spain. The universities began a campaign against it. The Empress, who had helped found the college, had left most of her legacy to the college upon her death, in 1603. Simon Diaz, historian of the college, has also emphasized the relations between festivities and literature in early modern Habsburg Spain. This would mean that these questions touch on cultural studies of early modern Spain. Others have noted the emblems within the emblematic tradition of Europe and Spain.2 The general trend—it has been argued—was to present these Habsburg women as models of piety and religious devotion and erase any trace of their real political involvement (Sanchez). The hieroglyphics with the epigrams in Hebrew, Greek, Latin and Spanish that were created and exhibited for her obsequies, are reproduced and described in the book. According to the description, the tumulus in the Jesuits’ church was painted to represent white marble