Caterina van Hemessen in the Habsburg Court of Mary of Hungary

Jennifer Courts considers the career of Caterina van Hemessen, a portraitist and a member of the court of Mary of Hungary. Her virtues as a painter were praised by contemporaries, and she is recognized by modern scholars for her artistic innovation; yet signed paintings by the artist ceased at approximately the same time she entered courtly service. Rather than viewing painting as the pinnacle of her career, the author argues that Caterina’s artistic output served as a means of social mobility. The author also suggests that van Hemessen’s activities created opportunities for subsequent artists, notably Sofonisba Anguissola, who arrived at the Habsburg court in Spain after shortly after van Hemessen’s departure in 1558.

Claiming Nobility in the Monarquía Hispánica: The Search for Status by Inca, Aztec, and Nasrid Descendants at the Habsburg Court

By the early seventeenth century, petitioners at the royal court in Madrid who claimed descent from the Inca rulers of Peru, the Aztec rulers of Mexico, and the Nasrid emirs of Granada found ways to acquire noble status and secure rights to their ancestral lands in the form of entailed estates. Their success in securing noble status and title to their mayorazgos (entailed estates) rested on strategies, used over the course of several generations, that included marriages with the peninsular nobility, ties of godparentage and patronage, and military service to the crown. This article will examine the networks formed in Madrid between roughly 1600 and 1630 when the descendants of the Inca and Aztec rulers interacted with peninsular noble families at court, obtaining noble status and entry into the military orders and establishing their mayorazgos. Their strategies for claiming nobility show striking parallels to those adopted by the Morisco nobility, and one aim of this article is to suggest how knowledge of such strategies circulated among families both at the royal court in Madrid and in the viceroyalties of New Spain and Peru.

State services, fortuitous marriages, and conspiracies: Trans-territorial family strategies between Madrid, Brussels, and Vienna in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

Early modern composite monarchies functioned by maintaining local rights and traditions and the successful accommodation of noble elites in the army, diplomatic corps, and regional governments. Scholars commonly focus on the integration of nobles from the core lands in order to implement a faithful civil service and reliable institutions for government. Yet noble families from peripheries or border regions have been disregarded either as supporters or as opponents of royal power. This article explores the differing strategies of the Carrettos from Imperial Italy and the Arenbergs from the Southern Netherlands, two noble families from the border regions of the Habsburg realms and how they responded to integrative measures offered by the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs. It analyses four important aspects of noble family strategies. First, the article examines how vassalage, loyalty, and sovereignty created important bonds between noble families in the western border regions of the Holy Roman Empire and the emperor or sovereign. Second, it establishes how families became members of competitive Habsburg court societies via court honours, titles, and interregional marriage alliances. Third, the article looks at how these families supported the early modern state with successful performances of state service and how they utilized the vast career possibilities of composite monarchies. Fourth and finally, it analyses how the failed integration of noble elites from border regions resulted in governmental crisis and uprisings. This article demonstrates how nobles in the border regions could be integral to state power.

A Wallachian Boyar in Emperor Joseph II’s Court

The article explores the intricacies of eighteenth-century cultural mediation through the eyes of Ianache Văcărescu, a high-ranking Wallachian boyar and a man of letters, entrusted in 1782 with the sensitive task of bringing the fugitive sons of the incumbent Wallachian ruler back from the Habsburg court in Vienna. Analyzing Văcărescu’s account of the mission, I examine the nexus of luxury consumption, court civility, and social distinction, and the ways they were experienced and constructed the differences between European and Ottoman elite civility and cultural boundaries. In composing The History of the Most Powerful Ottoman Emperors, Ianache Văcărescu offered details about his place in a diplomatic network which spread across the Ottoman Empire and Central Europe.