In the Hispanic world, early modern utopianism produced at least one text that resembled More’s Utopia, in that it described an imaginary, idealized republic set in a fictional far-off land, designed to remark upon the ethics and the politics of the writer’s here and now. 1 But this was not the only current in the stream, nor was it the strongest. A homegrown version of the utopian imagination projected utopian possibilities, not onto a distant imaginary land, but into the future of the Hispanic world itself, or even into the future of a world dominated, and thereby redeemed, by Catholic Spain. It drew in varying measures upon historical legend, medieval canon and civil law, Renaissance humanism and neoclassicism, and Christian apocalypticism. Its development was nourished by the conquest of Granada in 1492 and catalyzed by Charles V’s assumption of the imperial dignity. Spain, it seemed to some, had been chosen by Providence to rebuild the grandeur of Rome, but infused with the light of faith. And although Philip II did not himself become Holy Roman Emperor, his succession to the crown of Portugal gave him an empire of unprecedented extent, fueling Hapsburg aspirations to style themselves “Lords of All the World.” 2 This aspiration for universal monarchy makes marked appearances in historiography and epic poetry addressed to the Spanish Hapsburgs, and can be identified in their courtly art, architecture, and ceremonial. 3 Its utopian possibilities are best captured by Hernando de Acuna’s oft-cited “Soneto al Rey nuestro Senor” (“Sonnet to the King, Our Lord”):