5.3.5. IN SPAIN, NO CIVIL WAR, NO PROTESTANTS, NO CAPITALISTS

SPANISH KINGS' IMAGE CHANGES WITH NEW RESOURCES

Charles V stands, has no hat or crown and his hands are free. In another work he rides a horse.

Carlos V by Bartolomé Vicente, toward 1675 / zoom 

Sixteenth-century Seville, crossroad of Eastern luxury and New World treasure, is more important than Venice.

View of Seville, attributed to Alonso Sanchez Coello, toward 1580 / zoom

But they come from the outside, not local producers:  

Zoom 

Origins of Spain's new revenues: Flanders and the Americas

Dominating wealthy Flanders and seizing the treasures of Latin America finance 150 years of hegemony and a Golden Age of churches, theater decors, thousands of plays and celebrated paintings. Some of them:

Las Meninas (The Ladies in Waiting) by Velasquez, 1656 / zoom

View of Toledo by El Greco, toward 1600 / zoom 

The Burial of Count Orgaz by El Greco, toward 1587 / zoom

The Clubfoot by Jusepe de Ribéra, 1642 / zoom

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They finance the Inquisition as well. Like other official neutralizations of wealth, it reinforces authority: 

The Procession of the Inquisition of Goa, 1783 / zoom

The Grand Inquisitor (Cardinal Fernando Niño de Guevara by El Greco, toward 1600 / zoom

Tribunals appear throughout Spain and in the territories it controls. Each remunerates two or three Inquisitors, who are thoroughly trained, well-paid members of the elite, as well as notaries, lawyers, scribes, doctors, prison guards and executioners.  

-- The Faith of Remembrance: Marano Labyrinths by Nathan Wachtel, 2009

Auto de Fe in the Plaza Mayor of Madrid by Francisco Rizi, 1683 / zoom 

Victims must repent before the king, or if outside Madrid before his representatives. Then they learn whether will be burned. 

The Inquisition at Night by Francisco Goya, 1810 / zoom

Night makes the spectacle still more terrifying.

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The regime makes forcibly converted Jews or Muslims, who may still retain ancestral practices, the defenseless enemy. But it does nothing to the approximately 200 Protestants — they are too few to bother with.

The economy does not change. Neither does Spain.

Internet, photographer unknown

 The facade of Saint James is rebuilt in the 18th century — with 16th-century decor.

When Spain's revenus give out, it enters France's orbit as inexorably as African producers sweep away archaic states when the Atlantic slave trade ends. 

In 1700 the Spanish ambassador

kneels before the grandson of Louis XIV, 

the new king of Spain. 

King Louis XIV proclaims the Duc of Anjou king of Spain November 19, 1700 by Maurice Leloir, 1931

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Next,

5.3.6.

Archaic opponents of growth resist and are defeated