A Holy Land for the Catholic Monarchy: Palestine in the Making of Modern Spain, 1469–1598 A dissertation presented by Adam G Beaver to The Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of History Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts May 2008 © 2008 Adam G Beaver Advisor: Prof. Steven E. Ozment Adam G Beaver A Holy Land for the Catholic Monarchy: Palestine in the Making of Modern Spain, 1469–1598 ABSTRACT Scholars have often commented on the ‘biblicization’ of the Spanish Monarchy under Philip II (r. 1556–1598). In contrast to the predominantly neo-Roman image projected by his father, Charles I/V (r. 1516/9–1556), Philip presented himself as an Old Testament monarch in the image of David or Solomon, complementing this image with a program of patronage, collecting, and scholarship meant to remake his kingdom into a literal ‘New Jerusalem.’ This dissertation explores how, encouraged by the scholarly ‘discovery’ of typological similarities and hidden connections between Spain and the Holy Land, sixteenth-century Spaniards stumbled upon both the form and content of a discourse of national identity previously lacking in Spanish history. The dissertation is divided into four chapters. In the first chapter, I examine three factors—the rise of humanist exegesis, a revitalized tradition of learned travel, and the close relationship between the crown and the Franciscan Order—that contributed to the development of a more historicized picture of the Holy Land in sixteenth-century Spanish sources. In Chapter Two, I focus on the humanist historian Ambrosio de Morales’ efforts to defend the authenticity of Near Eastern relics in Spanish collections. I argue that Morales developed a logic of authentication, based on a philosophy of history first developed as a student of the Dominican theologian Melchor Cano, that symbolically transformed Spain’s Holy Land relics into national treasures. Abstract iv In Chapter Three, I focus on one aspect of Benito Arias Montano’s biblical commentary, demonstrating how he made use of Sephardic sources and his knowledge of sacred geography to invent one of the most enduring legends of early modern Spanish historiography: that Spain was settled by Jews brought from the Holy Land by Nebuchadnezzar during the Babylonian Captivity. Finally, in Chapter Four I focus on Spanish efforts to build architectural replicas of the Holy Places (ie. Holy Sepulchers, Via Crucis, etc.) on Iberian soil. I argue that these replicas belong to a larger discourse according to which Spain, by replicating certain salient measures and features of the topography of the Holy Land, was itself considered to be a New Jerusalem. CONTENTS Abstract.............................................................................................................................. iii Acknowledgements............................................................................................................ vi Introduction The Holy Land and the Problem of History in Philip II’s Spain ...................................................................1 Chapter One The Rediscovery of the Levant: The Holy Land through Renaissance Eyes ............................................................20 Chapter Two Sticks, Stones, and Ancient Bones: Relics and the Historical Record ...........................................................................61 Chapter Three Nebuchadnezzar and the New Jerusalem: A National Genealogy in the Renaissance...........................................................108 Chapter Four Blueprints for a Holy Land: Spain as Replicated Palestine..............................................................................172 Conclusion España mirando a Tierra Santa: The Holy Land and Spanish Identity....................................................................227 Bibliography ....................................................................................................................234 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Writing this dissertation would not have been possible without the kind and generous support of dozens of people across multiple continents. My sincerest thanks are due to Steven Ozment, my doktorvater. I first met Steven in the autumn of 1997, when I, a Harvard undergraduate at the time, sat at his feet in his Western Civilization survey. The fact that he has allowed me to tag along with him for some ten years is nothing short of remarkable; and his subtle wisdom and editorial perspicacity are unparalleled. So, too, are the patience and talents of my other readers, John Edwards and Ann Blair. Ann, in spite of her many other committments, has always been exceptionally generous with her time and unfailing wisdom. John, as the sole Hispanist on my committee, has rendered heroic and much-appreciated aid on numerous occasions since I first met him in Oxford in the autumn of 2000. I am also indebted to the kindness and wisdom of other colleagues and mentors who have in numerous ways helped me through the research and writing process. In Madrid, María Tausiet and James Amelang provided much-needed respite from the Biblioteca Nacional, welcoming me into their seminar room and their homes. Expert bibliographer that he is, Jim continues to send me references that remind me that the first stage of wisdom is the recognition of one’s own ignorance. Laura Bass and Ari Zighelboim made life in Madrid, on Cloud Ampáro, a pleasure. At various stages of my research, Kate van Liere, Amanda Wunder, Katie Harris, Erin Rowe, Mary Gaylord, Katy ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii Park, Moti Feingold, Ted McCormick and Carrie Euler, among many others, have tendered useful advice and criticism. It is hard to imagine that I will ever again be among such a critical mass of talented people as the cohort of graduate students I am proud to call my peers, both at Harvard and during my Fulbright year in Madrid. I must especially mention John Gagné, Clare Gillis, Erik Heinrichs, Amy Houston, Elizabeth Mellyn, Janna Wasilewski, and Jeff Webb at Harvard, and Matt Crawford, Andrew Devereux, and Nick Bomba from Madrid. As any good Renaissance scholar knew, scholarly pursuits require the largesse of patient patrons, and I have had a generous share of such help along the way. I would like to thank the Harvard History Department, the Fulbright Commission, the Program for Cultural Cooperation between Spain and United States Universities, and the Real Colegio Complutense for their generous support of my research and writing over the past five years. Finally, I would like to thank my family: my suegros Jorge and Inés, and Francisco, Eliza, Elena, Jorge Luis, Silvana, Marissa, and Christopher, as well as my own parents Ann and Charlie, and my brothers, Andrew and Ben. But none have made half the sacrifices, or brought me half the joy, as has my wife María. It is to her, the object of a very personal Marian devotion, that I dedicate this dissertation. Cambridge, MA May 2008 INTRODUCTION THE HOLY LAND AND THE PROBLEM OF HISTORY IN PHILIP II’S SPAIN You were left so changed By comparison with what you were Before that lamentable decline, That even when you were rescued You still did not recognize yourself, Seeing yourself dressed in foreign and miserable clothes. With temerous horror, Your towns destroyed Without a trace, And of others their fame, Like their locations, are hardly remembered; Having been ladina before, [Now] you spoke a fleeting aljamia. 1 - Gonzalo de Argote y de Molina (1575) DON GONZALO’S VERSES on the fate of Lady Spain, which form part of the preliminaries of the humanist historian Ambrosio de Morales’ Antigüedades de las ciudades de España, are a poignant reminder of the central dilemma that faced the historians of Renaissance Spain. Querying the past in search of noble ancestors with which to adorn the pantheon of their new nation, Morales’ and Argote’s learned peers were often compelled to surrender in the face of the catastrophic discontinuity that the Jewish and Moorish ‘occupations’ of medieval Iberia had inflicted upon the historical memory of 1 Gonzalo de Argote y de Molina, “Elogio,” in Ambrosio de Morales, Las antigüedades de las ciudades de España que van nombradas en la corónica con las averiguaciones de sus sitios y nombres antiguos, ed. Enrique Flórez, 2 vols. (Madrid: Benito Cano, 1792), 1:LXXI–LXXIV, here at LXXII–LXXIII. “Quedaste tan trocada / De lo que ser solias / Ante de aquel estrago lamentable, / Que siendo rescatada / Aun no te conocias / Viéndote en trage extraño y miserable. / Con horror espantable / Tus pueblos destruidos / Sin dellos quedar nombre, / Y de otros el renombre / Apénas con los sitios conocidos. / Y siendo ántes ladina, / Hablabas aljamia peregrina.” INTRODUCTION | The Holy Land and the Problem of History 2 Spain’s Christian communities. In the work to which Argote’s poem was appended, Morales made explicit his colleagues’ common lament over the disruption caused by the of Moorish invasion of 711. Thanks to the long centuries of Muslim rule in the Peninsula, Morales complained, many of the towns and cities of modern Spain would never be able to trace their origins back to respectably European, Roman, and/or Christian antiquity, “their fame, like their locations, hardly remembered.” The Moors had changed the names of so many places in the Peninsula, he continued, that many of the most important cities of ancient Spain—places like Almagro, Alcántara, Algeciras, and Guadalajara—lay disguised behind Arabic names, some of which preserved