Madrid and the Habsburgs Part 4 by Robert Fullarton Copyright 2019

Madrid and the Habsburgs Part 4
by Robert Fullarton   Copyright  2019


There are a labyrinth of streets and passageways going right through the heart of Madrid, the Calle Major, up the Plaza Santa Anna, through countless bars where parties seemingly never cease and lights never fade.

On the Plaza Santa Anna you can savour the tastes of Spain and Castillian cuisine. In one fine cervezeria, a visitor is greeted with the sight of Jambon hanging on hooks, wooden counters and Spanish tiled surroundings, with South American waiters and photos of Spanish bull fights. The people are laid back, as guests pour into the premises for a late night selection of tapas. Northern Europeans are not accustomed to the late night lifestyle of the Spanish, where most  people eat at 10 o'clock or even 11 at night, (when I start yearning for my bed). While parties throng the streets with midnight revelries that keep me awake, from my hotel bed, surrounded by roadworks and the clamour of traffic.

Madrid is part grit, part glamour, part new world, part old world, historical  with monuments to the past and prestige of its empire scattered across this city of 5 million people and yet at times brash. Standing at 2,190 ft, Madrid is Europe's highest capital and one in which some complain of the altitude and difficulty breathing. Madrid in summertime becomes congested and is known for its smog in the summer heat.

In the Habsburg and Bourbon quarters of old Madrid that grew out of a small town, (a backwater of Castille) to eventually become the capital of the fading Spanish empire. Perhaps in some ways Madrid could not match the imperial, historical and ecclesiastical grandeur of Toledo or Valladolid as the antiquated capitals and centers of power that linked Charles V to his great European empire. However this city became in some sense the project of Phillip II and his future heirs, as the center of their empire, where Habsburg, red Renaissance architecture developed and Bourbon French style, Neo-Classical boulevards were set out in the centuries ahead, as the city grew in time. This would in time become the city of many great artists (such as Velazquez and Goya), poets and writers and witness many revolutions.

In examination, it can be easily stated that Charles failed to unite Europe under one systematic and homogeneous Christian church, as the Reformation had spread and expanded to the north and east of Europe, the intellectual war of ideas too was ongoing with the counter reformation in its infancy. Germany was split in two, with the rebellious Protestant north and the loyal Catholic south of Germany. Turkey remained the main threat and dominant force to be contended with against both Christendom itself and the territories of Charles empire, whose naval dominance of the Mediterranean was only checked after the Catholic Leagues victory at Lepanto .

Phillip II spent his reign trying to fulfill the grand dreams of his father. He now moved his court to the Alcazar of Madrid to be his new capital and to set on expanding the city. But after defeating the French at the Battle of San Quentin in 1557, Phillip decided on building the palace and monastery of San Lorenzo Del Escorial  in homage to both his father Charles V and St. Laurence on celebration of the saint, to whom he attributed his victory to. This Palace was to become an architectural triumph which Phillip supervised and planned meticulously at the backdrop of the Guadarrama Mountains. This Building was designed purposely to look like a gridiron, to represent the one which saint Laurence had been martyred on.

This building represented the religious severity of intensely Catholic Phillip and yet also display his artistic passion for architectural perfection. Treasures of art and scholarship await all who come to this pantheon of the Spanish Habsburg dynasty.

Madrid and the Spanish Habsburgs PART 3 by Robert Fullarton copyright 2019

Madrid and the Spanish Habsburgs PART 3
by Robert Fullarton copyright 2019


The Prado museum in Madrid, hosts Spain's premier collection of art, showcasing many masterpieces from some of Europe's greatest artists. It was for me a much anticipated glimpse of the old Habsburg world of Charles V and Phillip II and the world of the great artist and his patron.

Here we have in the main foyer of the museum at the Goya entrance there is an impressive Bronze statue of Charles V the titular emperor of the Germans, ruler of Spain, the Netherlands, the Indies and Italy, striking a serpent with a fantastic spear in the spirit of Hercules and the 12 labours. Move down a little, through the great hall and you will see Titian's painting of the great Habsburg monarch, and the greatest equestrian portrait of all time. It has Charles on horse, holding reign will the stallion prances as if in joy, with majestic strokes at the setting of a victory against the German Protestant princes. The painting equates the antiquated equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius in Rome, and its propaganda gave the message of an emperor who was in control, despite the many enemies and threats which he could not in fact conquer, like his gout which crippled him into retirement!

Following suit Phillip II heir and successor to the Spanish throne and the fanatical Catholic vision of the Habsburg dynasty sought out Titian in Milan where we have his grand portrait as duke of Milan as a young man, in battle armour and with an iron rod, next to Charles' famous equestrian portrait. Down this hallway we have a whose who of historical figures in both Spanish and Habsburg history. We have Rubens, and his equestrian portrait of Phillip the II, (whom we know as the loser of the First Spanish armada) and Phillip III his eventual heir (and unremarkable monarch whose participation in international wars set Spain's empire into a slow decline).

We can see the portraits of Habsburg queens and cousins, showcasing the infamous Habsburg long jaw and puffy lips, as the incest of intermarriage between Austrian uncles and Spanish nieces crisscrossed to create unhealthy and morbid figures such as Charles the II "the bewitched" last of the Habsburg kings, (a man with water on his brain, a giant protruding chin, infertile, balding and interested in digging up dead relatives for examination). The legacy of Emperor Charles V and his grandfather Maximilian was not only ruined by generations of inbreeding but by the successful actions of various English governments and Dutch rebels that thwarted the Habsburg vision for European hegemony and Catholic totalitarianism in Europe.

However this was a Golden age of art with the blossoming of Spanish  and Italian masters in the 16th century, often through royal patronage, we have the wonders of Flemish art which were sponsored by both Charles and Phillip, (the later in particular bought up much Flemish art for his own personal collection) with the works of Hieronymus Bosh, Peter Bruegel the elder, Rogier Van der Weyden and Rubens. In the paintings of Bosch we have the recurring theme of human baseness and badness and divine purity, judgment and the dissolution of the sky and the earth. Bosch's world is like a fantastic medieval Where's Wally not for childish amusement but for moralistic and spiritual edification. Each corner of the painting perplexes, excites and frightens, as men are devoured by demons, as hybrid animals eat men, and bosch himself appears in the Garden of Heavenly delights as a dismembered giant, whose body is inhabited by monsters. Such were not meant to be children's tales on canvas but as eternal warnings against a world always on the edge of the apocalypse and the judgement of humanity.