King Of Spain Research Articles

On the origins of the Netherlands’ States General

ABSTRACT The States General of the Netherlands took the lead in the revolt against the King of Spain, Philip II, in the sixteenth century and it ruled as a sovereign assembly until the end of the eighteenth century. It emerged relatively late, as compared to the French model dating from 1302. It is questionable if there was such a thing as a first meeting in the Netherlands. Current scholarship agrees on the meetings in January to March 1464 in Bruges, Ghent and Lille, summoned by Duke Philip with a very different purpose than the one which came to dominate the discussions. While it is generally assumed that the initiative came from the Duke, after his son had tried to usurp it, this article argues for more gradual processes. First, the meetings of 1464 and 1465 were successful thanks to decades of intense joint meetings between four and six of the core principalities concerning primarily economic purposes. Second, their cohesion facilitated their crucial role during successive dynastic crises from 1477 to 1492, when fundamental principles of constitutional representation were formulated. These would enable the States General to organize the war of liberation from Spanish oppression.

Scandal, Shame and the Former King of Spain: ¡Hola! Magazine and Its Coverage of Juan Carlos I from 2012 to 2022

This article argues that the coverage in ¡Hola! magazine of King Juan Carlos I has helped him navigate public scandal over the course of the past decade by actively minimizing the societal perception of shame regarding his actions. I combine Ari Adut’s theory on the sociological manifestations of scandal with Sara Ahmed’s work on shame and apology to show how ¡Hola! both crafts a narrative of Juan Carlos I’s exile to the UAE as a simple beachside retirement and subtly pressures its readers to view him as innocent of any corruption charges he may face.

“Juan de Vergara and the Supplication of the Ordinance of the Marquis of Montesclaros, Buenos Aires, 1615”

We begin the study of the text titled “Juan de Vergara, supplication of the ordinance of the marquis of Montesclaros, Buenos Aires, 1615,” in Levillier, Roberto (ed.), “Correspondence of the City of Buenos Aires with the Kings of Spain”, Volume 2, Madrid, Biblioteca del Congreso Argentino, 1918, pp. 7-15[1]. The main text is dated Buenos Aires, 17/2/1615. The letter from the porteño procurator was addressed to Governor François de Beaumont y Navarra, who in turn represented the Viceroy, Juan de Mendoza y Luna, the third Marquis of Montesclaros in the governorship, regarding his provisions from 1613 for the administration of the royal treasury of Buenos Aires. The written document is taken from Roberto Levillier’s edition of the “Correspondence of the City of Buenos Aires with the Kings of Spain”, and it is interesting to comment on the context of the publication of such an important historical study. According to Alejandra Pita González (2018), its editor was born on October 1, 1881, in France, to Henri Levillier and Ida Andremont, both French.

The Ritual of the Golden Fleece in Prague 1657

The Order of the Golden Fleece represented one of the many connections between the Spanish main branch of the Habsburg dynasty and its younger branches in Central Europe. Since Charles V, the kings of Spain had held the position of Grand Master of the Order. The Spanish kings could admit anyone based on their preferences, thanks to Philip II and his reform of the Order in 1577. The Order of the Golden Fleece became a sign of superiority in contrast to their Central European relatives. The Austrian Habsburgs also enjoyed its benefits, and rewarded their closest and most faithful servants with the membership of the Order. However, they could only support a certain number of their servants and anticipate a positive response from Madrid. The ceremony of the Order of the Golden Fleece, which took place in Prague in 1657, is analyzed in the context of the relationship between the Spanish and Austrian lines of the Habsburg dynasty. Similarly, the ceremony in Prague reflected the situation at the imperial court after the death of Ferdinand III and the transition of power to his son Leopold, connected with a change in the official staff. Thirdly, the ceremony in Prague is compared with a similar ceremony held in Brussels in 1650 to point out potential differences based on the Central European environment.

Review: Philip II of Spain and the Architecture of Empire

Review: <i>Philip II of Spain and the Architecture of Empire</i>

Political scandals, media systems, and ideological polarization: the case of the emeritus King Juan Carlos I

Research on scandals is a privileged way to explore jointly media and political systems, and the links between them. In this article, we explore how the coverage of political corruption in digital native and paper newspapers has the characteristics of politically oriented scandals (Mancini, 2019), which are more common in polarized pluralist systems, like the Spanish one. To do so, we have studied the scandals related to the former King of Spain, Juan Carlos I. In the research, we have analyzed the evolution of media coverage on the topic between July 1, 2014, and March 1, 2021 in three different paper newspapers (El País, El Mundo and ABC). During this period, 889 journalistic pieces were published in these three newspapers. Also, we have conducted a quantitative and qualitative analysis of a sample of 334 pieces from the last year covered by the research (2020-2021) on El País, El Mundo and ABC and on digital natives El Español and elDiario.es. The results show a political instrumentalization of the scandal, media partisanship (the media support some political parties’ positions) in El País, elDiario.es and ABC; and ideological polarization (analyzed content presents two politically opposed groups) in ABC and elDiario.es.

Interventions at La Moneda Palace, from the 19TH, 20TH, and 21ST centuries. The projects and their architects

The Palacio de La Moneda, or La Moneda Palace, is the seat of the Presidency and the Executive Power of Chile, the Ministry of the Interior and Public Security, the General Secretariat of the Presidency, and the General Secretariat of the Government. It is one of the main historical and most important buildings in Chile in terms of its current representative function, as the Government Palace. Since its construction, in 1786, it has been the witness and star of the historical-political and social-urban evolution of the nation, of events that have been expressed in its own architectural metamorphosis and the evolution of the urban fabric. Designed by architect Joaquín Toesca, a disciple of Francesco Sabatini, a professional of the court of Carlos III, King of Spain (1759-1788), the Palace is the main example of Neoclassicism in Chile. It was inaugurated in 1805 as the Royal Mint of Santiago, to mint the kingdom's currency. After the independence of Chile, in 1845, the Seat of Government and Presidential Residence moved to the building. It is on this date that it adopts its representative function, and therefore, the moment where the first important modification of its floorplan took place, beginning a process of continuous evolution characterized by the dynamic transformation and permanent adaptation of its architecture, through successive interventions, functional updates, and its reconstruction after the 1973 air raid. The lack of an organized and detailed record of its permanent alterations makes it difficult to understand them from their current state and for possible future interventions. As a result, this article presents the most important and significant changes on the perception of the building, thus becoming the first organized record of contemporary interventions of La Moneda Palace.

Establishing the Jesuit Province of Mexico: The Development and the Institutions of a Missionary and Educational Province (1572–1615)

Abstract The Society of Jesus has been characterized as a global order, as it could adapt to different social and political contexts. The initial purpose of the Jesuit province in New Spain was to convert the Indians to Catholicism. However, when the Jesuits arrived they found that the social diversity of the viceroyalty, particularly the large contingent of Creole inhabitants, made it impossible for them to focus solely on the Indians. Consequently, the Order in New Spain had to forge a path between the orders issued by the King of Spain and the General of the Order based in Rome and the needs of the local inhabitants, which resulted in the Province of Mexico acquiring a missionary and educational character. The main aim of this article is to analyze the foundation and development of the Province of Mexico during the generalates of Everard Mercurian and Claudio Acquaviva by examining the institutions they opened, and the different strategies of education and evangelization that they pursued throughout the viceroyalty. It will pay special attention to the designs of the central powers in Europe, the views points and discussions on education and evangelization by actors in New Spain, and how transatlantic decisions on the Order’s role in the viceroyalty affected the evolution of the province. To do this, the article will discuss three main aspects of the Jesuits’ mission in New Spain, (1) the type of missions and colleges that the Jesuits opened, (2) how Jesuit institutions were shaped according to the group of people that they aimed to evangelize or educate, and in turn (3) how that influenced the languages that the Jesuits taught to the local inhabitants.

Journeys Across Zeelandia: Anton Van Den Wyngaerde’s Panorama of Walcheren and Philip II

ABSTRACT Anton van den Wyngaerde’s (c. 1490–1571) Panorama of Walcheren (after c. 1548) depicts the entire Island and the North Sea across ten metres of rolled paper. As the scene unfurls, viewers travel across Walcheren’s dikes, roads, and waterways. Staffage accompanies the viewer on this mental journey, animating the topographical vision. Comparison with Jacob van Deventer’s (c. 1500/5–1575) maps of Walcheren’s largest cities (c. 1550) demonstrates van den Wyngaerde’s pictorial style. His style’s potential for cinematic absorption was suited to the panorama’s intended audience and location. A version of this panorama hung in the Palacio de El Pardo of Philip II (1527–1598), King of Spain, by September 1564. That painted panorama, now lost, brought before the king’s eyes an illustrated account of the Island’s economic and defensive significance. Strolling the length of the gallery, Philip could envision past time spent on Walcheren and find himself immersed in the Island’s cultural experiences while being reminded of its position. The viewing experience offered the king of Spain a microcosmic synecdoche of his imperial power.

An Ethiop's Aethiopica: Heliodorus and Juan Latino's Austriad

This essay addresses the question of how Juan Latino, an Afro-Hispanic author, self-fashioned or depicted himself as a figure worthy of admiration for his Spanish readers; and how he foregrounded his imitation of other Western classical texts so as to further authorize his writings. It proposes that Juan Latino alludes and utilizes Heliodorus's Aethiopica, a recently discovered and popular Greek/Byzantine novel, in order to cast himself as a wise, virtuous and eloquent Ethiop and as someone who is well suited to write an epic of the historic battle of Lepanto. He does so through contrastive oppositions. He also affirms Western values and Western art, evincing its presence in Ethiopia. He rejects the universality of the supremacy of one color of skin by underlining the opposing opinion: In the Aethiopica the people in this African kingdom despise white skin. Thus, Juan Latino's epic affirms the relativity of a scale in color by again pointing to the ways kings of Spain and Ethiopia judge whiteness and blackness.

Le discours du roi (Felipe VI) et celui du président (Macron). Analyse comparée de deux allocutions télévisées

Heads of State’s televised addresses can transmit the population very relevant infor- mation, mainly during periods of crisis, but they can also contribute to create and diffuse an orator’s ethos favourable to the exercise of their functions. Starting from the hypothesis that the construction of this ethos depends, to a large extent, on the social image that the country’s legal system attributes to the Head of State, we mean, in this article, to make a comparative analyse of two speeches: the one performed by president Macron after the beginning of the “yellow vests” crisis and the one that the king of Spain, Felipe VI, gave after the referendum about Catalonia’s independence

The King of Spain’s Slaves in St. Augustine, Florida (1580–1618)

The King of Spain’s Slaves in St. Augustine, Florida (1580–1618)

Luta de “classes” e disputa “nacional” nos Açores de 1580? A família de Jácome Trigo perante a resistência terceirense e a conquista espanhola

In this study, we explore two documents of the Public Library and Regional Archive Luís da Silva Ribeiro, notably, one pension of 1583 and one petition, with a minute of witnesses, of 1584. Both address the privileged Jácome Trigo and fellows, confessed partisans of Philip II, opponents of the rebellion of Terceira in support of D. António. Hunted by the rebellious people and by the sectarian justice of Prior do Crato, the group endures the confiscation of assets, until condemned to death penalty, commuted to exile in England in 1582. Then, as proof of loyalty to the king of Spain, after a dangerous voyage, that costs the life of Jácome Trigo, the band lands in Lisbon, still in time to join the army of the marquis of Santa Cruz, which conquers Terceira in 1583. Besides, with less importance, we recall events, omitting a revision, related with the Iberic Union, for instance, the condescension of the Kingdom and the resistance of Terceira, as well as the noticeable alignment of the social strata, and still the motivations of all trends, of nationalism, to the anti-castilianism or simply the yearning of Sebastianism.

Collision of Worlds: A Deep History of the Fall of Aztec Mexico and the Forging of New Spain

Few episodes in modern world history have attracted as much scholarly and popular attention as the Spanish invasion and occupation of central Mexico. Since the mid-nineteenth century, when William H. Prescott published History of the Conquest of Mexico (Boston, 1843) portraying Hernando Cortés as a romantic hero prevailing against great odds, scholars have drawn on a limited corpus of records and histories produced by Spaniards and native Mesoamericans for their understanding of these events. Nearly all these sources are retrospective, with the exception of Cortés’ letters to Charles I, the king of Spain, that were written as events unfolded. They were shaped by Cortés’ ambitions and his need to justify his illegal actions to his sovereign.Notwithstanding the existence of an already substantial body of scholarly and popular work about the conquest of central Mexico, new publications about the topic continue to appear. In this book, Carballo draws from the perspective of archaeology to “explore the comparative cultural developments of early Mesoamerica and Iberia and the material manifestations of their entanglement in the focal period of encounter, conquest, colonialism, and Native resilience” (11).Carballo devotes more than half the book to “deep” histories of Mesoamerica and Iberia and the nature of these societies at the point of contact and conflict. He is not the first author to note the congruities between them—in social structure, urbanism, political and territorial expansionism, the centrality of religion, and the incorporation of diverse peoples and cultures over time—as well the differences. Carballo presents a good deal of information succinctly and accessibly, although he is on surer ground when discussing Mesoamerica than he is when discussing Iberia. For example, his emphasis on the historical importance of Cádiz as a port downplays, even if inadvertently, the critical role played by Seville during the first period of Spanish expansion across the Atlantic. His conception of the “entwined” Roman and Celtic past entirely ignores the Visigoths, notwithstanding that at least some early modern Spaniards (like the Pizarros) hearkened back to them to deny any relationship with the Muslims who dominated much of the Iberian Peninsula for centuries.In part, Carballo’s difficulty lies in the sheer amount of material that he incorporates into a relatively short text; inevitably the results are uneven and sometimes questionable. As a case in point, he recounts without qualification the oft-told story about the early defection of Gonzalo Guerrero to Maya society for which there is scant evidence (138). Arguably, the book’s conceptualization is problematical as well. By focusing exclusively on a comparison between Spain and Mesoamerica, Carballo mostly ignores the critical thirty years of Spanish activity in the Caribbean from 1493 to 1510, despite their relevance to the events that would unfold in New Spain. He conveys the impression that the Spain’s decree of 1501 “that all Native subjects of the Caribbean colonies were free peoples” was the final word about the slavery; it was only the start of what would be decades of hedging and reversals of policy. He also suggests that tobacco became an important crop in those years (it did not) and that no evangelization efforts were undertaken in the islands. Moreover, Darién (Panama) was the first mainland Spanish settlement, not Veracruz, by nearly a decade.The real value in Carballo’s book, which distinguishes it from many other histories of the conquest, lies in its comparative approach to material culture and technology and its use of archaeological evidence. Carballo emphasizes Mesoamerica’s cultural diversity, urbanism, and extensive trade networks and Iberia’s long history as a crossroads for people from all over the known world. Furthermore, he traces long-term developments in both places that resulted from innovation and the spread of techniques and knowledge that accompanied the movements of people. For those who are new to the subject, the book offers an engaging introduction to the conquest era in central Mexico and the longer histories of complex interactions that reflected “novel forms of cultural creation that combined elements of Mesoamerican, European, African, and eventually also Asian ways of doing and knowing” (230).

Was François Fénelon a Political Philosopher?

During the reign of Louis XIV, few courtiers led careers as full and consequential as that of François Fénelon. Born in 1651 to a nobleman from an ancient line but with little wealth, Fénelon was well schooled through scholarships, rising as a young priest, scholar, teacher, and administrator through the Church hierarchy. The 1685 Revocation of the Edict of Nantes gave Fénelon the opportunity to distinguish himself as an educator at a school for girls who had recently converted from Calvinism to Catholicism. A rising star in King Louis XIV's court, he was mentored by the Crown's leading theologian and political theorist, Jacques Bénigne Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux, and rubbed shoulders with notables like the Duc de Saint-Simon. These associations led to his appointment as special tutor for Louis XIV's three grandsons, one of whom eventually became Philip V, king of Spain. Fénelon's own ambitions were rewarded in 1695, when he was appointed Archbishop of Cambrai. Over the course of his decorated career, Fénelon wrote theology, mysticism, and pedagogy, as well as more lighthearted fictional literature. He died in 1715, a few months before Louis XIV's own death.

Joseph Bonaparte and the Jersey Devil: A Numismatic Odyssey

Archaeological excavations at Cedar Bridge Tavern in Barnegat, New Jersey resulted in the recovery of a four reale coin minted by Joseph Bonaparte while King of Spain. This article examines the coin in its historical context, with particular emphasis on a legendary encounter between Bonaparte and the Jersey Devil.

Hercules and the King of Spain: Icons of Masculinity and Nation in Calderón's Spain by Dian Fox

Reviewed by: Hercules and the King of Spain: Icons of Masculinity and Nation in Calderón's Spain by Dian Fox Lucas A. Marchante-Aragón Keywords Dian Fox, Lucas Marchante-Aragon, Hercules, King Sebastian Of Portugal, Phillip Ii Of Spain, Masculinity, Nation, Drama, Calderon De La Barca fox, dian. Hercules and the King of Spain: Icons of Masculinity and Nation in Calderón's Spain. U of Nebraska P, 2019. 303 pp. Dian Fox's book is a decidedly welcome addition to the growing corpus of studies about masculinity in early modern Spain. A very intriguing question explored in this volume is the connection between performances of masculinity on stage and the formation of a Spanish national identity during this period. One of the arguments is that the ubiquity of theatrical performances throughout the Iberian Peninsula, and the social transversality of the audiences that enjoyed them, played a role in the promotion of a national identity built on notions of appropriate masculine performance. The study contains excellent analyses of the different representations of masculinity, both ideal and unacceptable, that can be found in plays built around the figures of the classical demigod Hercules and King Sebastian of Portugal. After an introduction and a framing chapter, the first part of the book is devoted to the figure of Hercules in early modern Spanish theater (chapters 2–4). The classical hero is connected both to the ruling dynasty by genealogical traditions and to the mythical foundational narratives of many Spanish locales. Representations of a virtuous Hercules who can control his passions served as a local example to combat the perceived crisis of masculinity in seventeenth-century Spain. However, the plays analyzed by Fox show an uncharacteristically feminized Hercules. This representation responds to the genealogical anxieties inherent to the discourse of honor that pervaded the post-1492 period in the Iberian Peninsula and that was central to the dramatic conflict of early modern Spanish drama. As she notes, paraphrasing Américo Castro, "Whereas historically the Spanish male suffered a crisis if his membership in the pure cast was questioned, dramatically the crisis occurred when the Spanish male's honor was doubted" (43). [End Page 124] When discussing Calderón's Los tres mayores prodigios and El pintor de su deshonra, the author superbly analyzes how the theme of honor/lineage is adapted into the classical myths reenacted onstage. In her study of Manos blancas no ofenden and Fieras afemina amor, which deals with an episode in which the hero will be made to dress in female attire (89), Fox sees the hero as an example of the hombre esquivo. This is a man that avoids/abhors women and marriage and seeks honor through deeds. Such a man is, according to the author, more transgressive of social order than the mujer esquiva that Melveena McKendrick had described (95). Fox explains how in both of these plays, "transvestism allows Calderon to expound with some depth not merely on masculinity and effeminacy, but also on reproductivity and succession" (109). The author clearly shows how these examples are very pertinent for the consideration of the figure of King Sebastian in the following chapters; however, the question of their implications for nation formation are not fully answered. This very interesting issue is dealt with briefly in the last two pages of the section. The second part of the book (chapters 5 to 7) deals with the figure of King Sebastian of Portugal and his context. The opening chapter is devoted to the poetry of Francisco de Aldana, who was sent to the court of Lisbon by Sebastian's uncle, Phillip II of Spain. His mission was to dissuade the young king from his plans to invade Morocco and persuade him to stay in Portugal, get married, and ensure dynastic continuation. Aldana not only failed in his mission, but was eventually seduced by the young king's project, and would ultimately die with him at the battle of Alcazarquivir. Fox analyzes here the tensions in Aldana's poetry with regard to the manly exercise of war and the desire for retirement in peace with his friend Benito Arias Montano. In these tensions, the author sees an expression of...

Jeux d'eaux à La Granja. Les fontaniers français en Espagne au XVIIIe siècle [Water games at La Granja: French plumbers in Spain in the eighteenth century] by Sophie Omère (review).

Reviewed by: Jeux d'eaux à La Granja. Les fontaniers français en Espagne au XVIIIe siècle [Water games at La Granja: French plumbers in Spain in the eighteenth century] by Sophie Omère Antoni Roca-Rosell (bio) Jeux d'eaux à La Granja. Les fontaniers français en Espagne au XVIIIe siècle [Water games at La Granja: French plumbers in Spain in the eighteenth century] By Sophie Omère. Paris: Transvalor-Presses des Mines, 2021. Pp. 325. Historians of technology are closer and closer to the "actual" life of technology, going beyond great contributions or spectacular realizations. Omère's book is devoted to the design and construction of the famous hydraulic system of the palace of La Granja de San Ildefonso in Spain during the eighteenth century. This subject lays in a field shared by the history of art, technology, and engineering, and in regard to the latter, especially of sumptuary plumbers ("fontaniers"). The book has seven chapters in three parts: 1) the plumbers of Philip V; 2) a hydraulic system between innovation and tradition; and 3) the mobility of men and techniques in La Granja. When Charles II of Habsburg (1661–1700) died without a successor, the French Philip of Anjou (1683–1746) was selected as new king of Spain. The reign of Philip V faced very great challenges—a civil war included—and in 1724 he abdicated in favor of his son Louis. Nevertheless, he was back to the throne given that Louis died after six months. Philip V decided around 1719 to build a new royal palace, perhaps for his retirement. He chose a singular place within the mountain range of Guadarrama, in the north of Madrid, covered with woods and rich in water resources. The site is called La Granja de San Ildefonso [The Farm of Saint Ildefonso], where a palace and an enormous garden were built. Taking advantage of the slope of the mountain, the garden had a hydraulic system based only on gravity, with a number of fountains including spectacular sculptures and no less spectacular water games, with several very high water jets. Philip V contracted several French plumbers to design and build this system of fountains. From the beginning, the plumbers were selected from the technicians working for the king of France, mainly in the gardens of the Palace of Versailles. Thanks to intensive and extensive archive work (bills related to the works, contracts, last wills, etc.), Omère has found the biographical data of these technicians. The result of this prosopography is highly interesting: she identified a set of specialized technicians, showing, for example, that the French plumbers used to belong to families of plumbers with continuity in Spain. In the second part, the author analyzes the introduction of some new technologies developed in the royal and noble palaces in France. One example was the use of lead or iron pipes, instead of ceramic ones. To provide the needed metal water pipes, some materials were imported from [End Page 1239] France (especially from the Champagne region), but also made in the north of Spain. A forge was installed in La Granja where the tubes and the sculptures were produced. In the third part of the book, Omère analyzes the circulation of knowledge and experts, centered on the case of the sumptuary hydraulics. The last chapter deals with the relationship between the plumbers of La Granja (also active in other Spanish royal palaces) and the Spanish tradition in hydraulics. The author recognizes that many innovations had occurred in Spain first, thanks to Islamic heritage (as demonstrated by the Alhambra) within the country, and afterwards, thanks to the great mobility of technicians, architects, and engineers in the Spanish Empire, given that it included regions of a high technical creativity, such as Italy and the Low Countries. The author considers these Italian, Dutch, or Belgian technicians as "foreign" people, a usual anachronism. Sumptuary fountains at La Granja were a relevant part of the king's exhibition of power, and in the end, he was successful: this system of fountains centered the interest of many visitors and continues today to be a tourist attraction. Omère explains the origin of the...

Fantasmas del Pasado en la Política de Identidad Contemporánea: Moctezuma II y Cristóbal Colón

El siglo XXI ha visto un gran aumento en la política de identidad. Europa y las Américas han enfrentado a movimientos revisionistas de sus historias. En el caso de España, el gobierno socialista de Pedro Sánchez ha impulsado legislación para reinterpretar el periodo de la post-guerra. En el caso de México, la administración de López Obrador ha reabierto viejas heridas al solicitar disculpas formales al Rey de España y al Papa por la conquista de México. Este ensayo exploratorio trata sobre un aspecto poco estudiado de este debate ideológico sobre la identidad cultural, el rol de los descendientes de figuras históricas en la política de identidad contemporánea. Hay un cierto elemento de actuación de la historia en las palabras y acciones de los descendientes de Moctezuma II y de Cristóbal Colon los cuales en muchos casos se asemejan a los ritos Aztecas de antaño en los que llevaba a cabo la posesión momentánea de sus personas por el espíritu de sus ancestros.

A Triumphal Arch for the Count of Moctezuma: Architectural Poetics and Artistic Competition at the Cathedral of Mexico City, ca. 1670–1700

In seventeenth-century Mexico City, the viceroys appointed by the kings of Spain began their tenures by processing through two ephemeral triumphal arches, one of them erected at the portal to the west transept of the Metropolitan Cathedral. The designs of those arches and their decoration with paintings on mythological themes are recorded in festival books printed to accompany the ceremonial entries. Previous scholarship has focused on the iconographic programs of the arches, seeing them as official statements on good government and the expression of an elite self-image. Less attention has been paid to the architectural structures themselves, the focus of ATriumphal Arch for the Count of Moctezuma: Architectural Poetics and Artistic Competition at the Cathedral of Mexico City, ca. 1670–1700. In this essay, Michael Schreffler presents a close and comparative reading of the descriptions of the arches in the festival books, providing insights into architectural knowledge and artistic competition in seventeenth-century Mexico City.