The Devil's Perspective in El Greco's Alegoría de la Liga Santa , San Juan de la Cruz's Cántico espiritual , and Cervantes's La Numancia

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Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth... Philippians 2.9-10 This generation is an evil generation; it seeks a sign, but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of Jonah.... and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. Luke 11.29-32 El Greco's famous portrait of Philip II, also known as the Alegoria de la Liga Santa [fig. 1], San Juan de la Cruz's lyrical masterpiece the Cantico espiritual, and Cervantes's first play, the epic tragedy La Numancia, are all presumed to have been composed within about fifty miles of each other, the first two in Toledo, the latter in Madrid, and all more or less around the year 1580. Therefore, it should not surprise us that they have many thematic and structural similarities. Most importantly, they all signal a kind of purposeful manifest destiny of Spain as the culmination of Christian Empire exhibiting grand, overarching designs that express moral and apocalyptic visions of Hapsburg rule as the final arrival of Christian peace on earth after centuries of human conflict. In this sense, they may be deemed idealistic, even apologetic compositions which pull up far short of the disillusionment of the baroque period to follow. Nevertheless, we should not mistake idealism for simplicity, for they are also anxious, self-consciously critical meditations on the possibly sinful nature of Spanish Empire at the peak of its expansion. As such they are not without disorienting political implications for Philip II as well as the Spanish viewing or reading public. One way of approaching the problematic nature of these pieces is to consider the key roles played in each certain malevolent intruders: the gaping hellmouth that threatens Philip II in El Greco's painting; the ominously diabolical Aminadab who lurks in the final stanza of San Juan's poem; and the disruptive devil that ruins the Numantian sacrificial ceremony in act two of Cervantes's play. In this essay, I will review the ways in which the Alegoria de la Liga Santa, the Cantico espiritual, and La Numancia all allude to Christian Empire, centering their respective apocalyptic visions on Philip II; then I will consider the problematic perspectives that diabolical transgressors bring to each work. At first glance, El Greco's painting is perhaps the most straightforward here due to its overt representation of Christian Empire. It portrays a fantastical meeting among the leaders of the Catholic alliance formed Spain, Rome, and Venice, who were victorious over Turkish forces at the great naval battle of Lepanto in 1571 (Blunt). In truth, the painting indicates the entire history of Catholic Empire: the principal kneeling figures, Philip II, the Pope, the Doge of Venice, and Don Juan of Austria, form a kind of Eucharistic communion beneath the initials IHS, representing the words In hoc signo vinces, a Latin translation of the phrase by this sign you will conquer, which for its part alludes to the cross that the first Christian Emperor, Constantine the Great, claimed to have seen in the sky prior to his victory at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312 AD. El Greco here mixes the historical allusion and political significance of Raphael and Romano's Vision of Constantine [fig. 2] with the cosmic design and theological significance of famous Last Judgment compositions like those Fra Angelico, Marten de Vos, and most especially Giovanni Battista Fontana (Davies) [fig. 3]. In this way the painting sets up an organic and moral universe that revolves around Philip II as the problematically militant agent of Christian Empire. Significantly, he is the subject in the painting whose perspective does not allow him to perceive the diabolical threat behind him due to his steady focus on the black sword held Don Juan of Austria. Allusions to the violence of empire are arguably more difficult to perceive in San Juan's great love poem. …