The Queen who shaped the music, literature, architecture, and painting of late medieval Spain.

The Queen who shaped the music, literature, architecture, and painting of late medieval Spain.

This multidisciplinary volume was inspired by the quincentenary of the death of Queen Isabel I of Castile, early modern Europe's first powerful queen regnant. Comprising work by distinguished art historians, musicologists, historians, and literary scholars from England, Spain, and the United States, it begins with a theoretical examination of medieval queenship itself that argues - against the grain of the volume - for its inseparability from kingship. Several essays examine the complex ways in which the Queen and her advisers shaped the music, literature, architecture, and painting of fifteenth-century Spain and how these in turn shaped the sovereign's power and persona. Others analyze influences on Isabel's reign from Aragón, Portugal, and northern Europe. A third group deals with issues of periodization, arguing from a variety of perspectives for the modernity of Isabelline culture. The evolving construction of Isabel's image from the mid-fifteenth to the late-twentieth century is also studied.

BARBARA WEISSBERGER is Associate Professor Emerita of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Minnesota.
OTHER CONTRIBUTORS:Rafael Domínguez Casas, Theresa Earenfight, Michael Gerli, Chiyo Ishikawa, Tess Knighton, Kenneth Kreitner, Elizabeth A. Lehfeldt, Nancy F. Marino, William D. Phillips, Jr., Emilio Ros-Fábregas, Ronald E. Surtz

Introduction: Questioning the Queen, Now and Then
Two Bodies, One Spirit: Isabel and Fernando's Construction of Monarchical Partnership - Theresa Earenfight
Isabel of Castile's Portuguese Connections and the Opening of the Atlantic - William D. Phillips
Isabel of Castile and Her Music Books: Franco-Flemish Song in Fifteenth-Cen tury Spain - Tess Knighton
The Reciprocal Construction of Isabelline Book Patronage - Ronald E. Surtz
Hernando de Talavera and Isabelline Imagery - Chiyo Ishikawa
Melodies for Private Devotion at the Court of Queen Isabel - Emilio Ros Fábregas
The Queen at War: Shared Sovereignity and Gender in Representations of the Granada Campaign - Elizabeth Lehfeldt
The Artistic Patronage of Isabel the Catholic: Medieval or Modern? - Rafael Domínguez Casas
Conflictive Subjectivity and the Politics of Truth and Justice inCárcel de Amor - E. Michael Gerli
Juan de Anchieta and the Rest of the World - Kenneth Kreitner
Inventing the Catholic Queen: Images of Isabel I in History and Fiction - Nancy Marino