The Habsburgs stand at the center of many studies of European culture during the sixteenth century. Now thanks to Fernando Checa Cremades, who directed the project, Juan Luis González García, who edited these volumes, their team of collaborators, and funding from The Getty Foundation, scholars have a marvelous new reference resource for researching Emperor Charles V, his mother, wife, aunt, and five siblings. Sixty-three different inventories of their possessions, dating between 1493 and 1559, have been transcribed anew. Some of the documents have been published earlier but not always completely or accurately. This vast amount of data, brought together for the first time, offers unprecedented insights into the history of collecting and early modern material culture. For the nine Habsburgs covered by this study, there are detailed essays about their lives, their tastes, and the functions of their art plus their inventories given in chronological order. The essays are published in Spanish followed by full English translations. The inventories are presented in their original languages without any explanatory notes or separate commentaries. Detailed indices of people, subjects, and typology at the end of volume three facilitate navigating through these sources.
Volume 1 is devoted to Charles V (1500–58) and his mother, Joanna I, Queen of Castile (1479–1555). Checa's thoughtful essay on Emperor Charles explains how he was not personally engaged as a collector until the 1540s. Previously, Charles, like his Burgundian ancestors, surrounded himself with tapestries and luxurious objects to express his magnificence rather than to convey any individual aesthetic preference. Late in his life he increasingly values portraits, notably of his family, paintings by Titian, mechanical clocks, and books. Checa lucidly analyzes the sorts of objects that Charles brought to Spain when he retired in 1556 as well as the sales of his possessions at Valladolid and Madrid in 1558 and 1560. Miguel Ángel Zalama sympathetically presents the somewhat tragic figure of Joanna I, Charles's mother, who suffered from bouts of madness and, it turns out, from her family's frequently plundering of her possessions once she was restricted to her palace in Tordesillas from 1509 until her death. Joanna's patronage has not been thoroughly examined by past scholars. Zalama describes her lack of interest in paintings and sculptures as she favored gems and objects of precious metals.
Volume two covers only Isabella of Portugal (1503–39), daughter of King Manuel I of Portugal and, from 1526, wife of Charles V. María José Redondo Cantera describes her inventories as offering the most complete records of the royal environment in Spain. From these Redondo Cantera concludes that most items, such as tapestries, were intended for Isabella's life within the walls of one of her palaces. Thus these sumptuous objects needed to be readily transportable and flexibly displayed in order to convey the empress’s majesty. Isabella's tastes, including her delight in works from outside Europe, reflected her Portuguese upbringing and identity. Unfortunately, as is the case with most of the items listed in the Habsburg inventories, few identifiable objects survive today. Starting with jewels and works in silver, Redondo Cantera examines the different types of riches and art that Isabella favored. She traveled with a small library of eighty or so books, most bedecked with precious stones and pearls, kept in a special chest.
Volume three treats Charles V's beloved aunt, Margaret of Austria (1480–1530), and five siblings. Dagmar Eichberger's excellent essay on Margaret, who served as the regent of the Low Countries, encapsulates her own recent research on arguably the most sophisticated patron and collector among this group of early Habsburgs. She considers the various ways Margaret acquired her artistic treasures and then displayed them in her palace in Mechelen. When Margaret participated in the compiling of the 1516 inventory, she often supplied the names of the artists and made evaluative remarks, such as a work being “fort anticque” or “de bien bonne main.” Most of the other Habsburg inventories lack any aesthetic judgments. Margaret's inventories often specify the rooms in which these objects were exhibited.
Annemarie Jordan Gschwend writes compellingly about Leonor of Austria (1498–1557), Charles's favorite sister. The essay begins with a nice discussion of Charles's relationships with, and marital politics for, Leonor, Isabella of Austria, and Mary of Hungary, the three sisters with whom he grew up in the Netherlands under the tutelage of Margaret of Austria. Although Leonor was briefly Queen of Portugal and later of France, her artistic tastes have not been studied as much as those of her second husband, Francis I. After Francis's death in 1548, she moved to Brussels where her interest in Netherlandish tapestries as well as portraits by Antonis Mor became evident. Jørgen Hein has more to say about the short life of Isabella of Austria (1501–26), wife of King Christian II of Denmark, than about her artistic preferences since the documentary evidence is mostly limited to jewelry. In the case of Ferdinand I (1503–64), King of Hungary and Bohemia and Holy Roman emperor (r. 1556–64), there is a surprising paucity of inventories. As Friedrich Edelmayer notes, the most complete record was compiled in 1522–24 when Ferdinand first assumed control of the Habsburg's ancestral Austrian and Swabia lands. His Vienna inventory of 1553 mostly lists jewelry and other items containing precious stones and pearls.
Bob C. van den Boogert focuses his informative essay on the artistic patronage of Mary of Hungary (1505–58), who as regent of the Low Countries from 1531 until 1555 amassed a considerable collection. He provides a succinct description of the Coudenberg Palace in Brussels including Mary's additions to the residential wing and chapel. She interacted closely with painters Bernard van Orley, Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen, Pieter Coecke van Aelst, Michiel Coxcie, and Antonis Mor. Mary also ordered several pictures from Titian, whose influence proved formative for mid-sixteenth century Netherlandish painting. During the late 1540s, Mary built smaller yet sumptuously decorated residences at Binche and Mariemont, both of which were burned down in 1554 by French troops. Besides her extensive portrait gallery in Brussels, Mary exhibited a strong personal interest in luxurious tapestry cycles. Her inventories are especially rich in the references to art and artists.
The youngest sister, Catherine of Austria (1507–78), grew up in Tordesillas with her mother and never traveled outside the Iberian Peninsula. Annemarie Jordan Gschwend recounts how Catherine maintained close communications with Charles, whom she met only twice in 1517 and 1524. As Queen of Portugal from 1525, Catherine's tastes increasingly embraced the rarities imported from the Portuguese colonies in Asia and the Far East, as documented in her subsequent inventories. Like her siblings, Catherine commissioned several important tapestry cycles from weavers in Brussels. Jordan Gschwend briefly discusses Catherine's rebuilding of the Avis family mausoleum in a classical style at the Jerónimos monastery in Belém.
Checa Cremades and his colleagues have created a remarkably informative reference resource. Just as Charles V's realm spanned much of Europe and beyond, the artistic tastes of his family came to embrace the riches and the talents of many lands. Not surprisingly, given their Burgundian ancestry and, for many, their upbringing in Brabant and Flanders, Netherlandish art, notably its tapestries and, secondarily, its painters, was foundational. Yet the Habsburgs, scattered across the continent, supported their local artists as well as Italian masters such as Titian. The excellent essays in these three volumes offer just a tantalizing hint of the sorts of conclusions that future scholars will draw from the family's inventories.
