Broadly speaking, it seems to me that the customs of the Spaniards are more suited to the Italians than those of the French, because the calm dignity charActeristic of the Spaniards seems to me more appropriate to us than the ready vivacity we see in almost everything the French people do.
(Baldassare Castiglione, The Book of the CourtierJ1
The cultural relations between Spain and Rome in the early eighteenth century are a study of delicate diplomacy and artistic nuance. At the beginning of the century, Spain was a nation in search of reform, and the new Bourbon monarch, Philip V (r. 1700-46) made it his goal to reaffirm the strength and grandeur that Spaniards once enjoyed in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries as one of the most powerful nations in Europe and colonizers of the Americas. Philip’s policies of widespread political and cultural regeneration were continued under his successors Ferdinand VI (r. 1746-59), Charles III (r. 1759-88), and Charles IV (r. 1788-1808). Under Bourbon rule, the literature and visual arts of Spain witnessed fundamental changes that were unprecedented in her history. Though the Bourbon succession primarily occurred on the Iberian Peninsula, relations between the Spanish crown and the Hapsburg court that it succeeded were played out largely by foreign diplomats in Rome, with the papacy maintaining an unpredictable role. Engaging directly with Roman artistic - and more specifically architectural - culture was also one of the principal ways that Spain achieved its re-emergence in European politics and culture, as Rome remained the paradigm for all of Europe.
The general perception was that Spain was far removed from the mainstream currents of Italian and European art. The common view or “myth” of Spanish culture at the turn of the century was one of decline, insularity, and crudeness (Kamen 2004: 40-56; Moran Turina 2002: 23-40). But, at the start of the eighteenth century, can it truly be said that Spanish art and architecture were in desperate need of radical reform? Was the problem a matter of sincerity, perception, or simply adjustment? However one interprets the question, in terms of what really happened, artistic relations between Spain and Rome in the early eighteenth century proved to be extremely beneficial to both. Spain was forced to engage directly with Papal Rome in order to reclaim its possessions lost during the War of Spanish Succession, and to remain one of the leading Catholic powers in Europe. Yet at the same time Spain needed to embrace the dominant strains of European Enlightenment thought in order to restore a sense of creative energy at home. Rome on the other hand received some of the most cogent examples of Spanish artistic patronage in its history, changing the face of the city with a distinctly Ibero-American character.
The art of building is of course a difficult discipline within which to examine such complex cultural relations, as cities, monuments, and landscapes take time to be conceived and built. The long, slow process of building is a collective effort that challenges any regional perspective or individual from emerging as a single dominant force at any given moment. This is certainly true of eighteenth-century Spain, where French, Italian, and Spanish architectural traditions vied with one another for preeminence. Buildings do not travel particularly well either, except in descriptions and images, and therefore the transmission of architectural thought is always one of adaptation and reinterpretation. As ideas travel across nations or continents, they gain momentum and shed unnecessary weight. Like a sirocco that covers the sky with a thick orange glow, architectural ideas can be both exhilarating and unsettling. Architectural thought in eighteenth-century Spain was especially complex as ideas were not only imported from Italy and France, but also adapted to Spanish building types, constructional practices, and decorative traditions. Finally, architecture is an art whose forms are shaped by those who build them and in turn whose influence is extended to those who use them. There is a kind of reciprocity in architectural thought and practice that is analogous to an individual’s capacity to grow and mature in character and conduct. In this sense one can say that buildings, like people, have temperaments, and the architectural relations between Spain and Rome in the eighteenth century certainly mirrored such relations.
Architecture can also be a very effective political tool, its imagery and content serving as powerful symbols of ambition and intent. The Bourbons had been aware of this since at least the 1660s when Louis XIV failed in his efforts to build the great staircase (scalinata) at the foot of the French church of the Trinita dei Monti overlooking Bernini’s famous barcaccia fountain in the Piazza di Spagna. A great equestrian statue of the French monarch by Bernini would have culminated the iconography of the space by providing a visible contrast to the barcaccia and its associated imagery with the papacy of Urban VIII Barberini (1623-44).2 But Bernini’s equestrian statue of Louis would have resulted in a conspicuously French version of the Campidoglio that Alexander VII Chigi (1655-67), under whose papacy the monument would have been erected, simply could not tolerate. Philip V must have known that these kinds of architectural interventions in Rome resonated profoundly, even if they never materialized. To that end, a
Significant number of built structures and ephemeral monuments would serve the new Spanish monarch in his claims of legitimacy, and Rome provided the perfect arena for such displays of architectural diplomacy.
Yet relations between Spain and Rome were more than political, as the two had been intimately related since antiquity. In fact it could be said that Spain was a creation of Rome, and hence it comes as no surprise that Spain and the Spanish world witnessed a particularly resonant version of Roman architecture and space in the early modern period under the Hapsburg dynasty. Rome too was also influenced by the presence and patronage of Spaniards in the Eternal City. Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Spanish nation built several churches, convents, and hospices throughout Rome and Italy, and patronized many churches where Spanish interests were particularly evident, bringing Spaniards into ever closer contact with the Papal States. As noted by Thomas Dandelet (2001: 34-35):
[a]s an important part of the Roman Empire and the birthplace of two of Rome’s greatest emperors, Trajan and Hadrian, Spain was dotted with visible reminders of its ancient relationship with the city in the form of aqueducts, amphitheaters, and various other ruins. This past, combined with the experience of empire under Charles [Charles I of Spain and Charles V of Germany], was a potent inspiration for playwrights, political theorists, historians and poets, who made Rome the subject of their work and a major point of comparison and contrast with Spain. Over time, they created a distinctly Spanish myth of Rome that was shaped by, and reflected, the deepening political and social relations between Spain and Rome.
But how would Spanish relations with Rome fare in the early eighteenth century under the Bourbon kings? Would a new monarchy signal a major shift in politico-cultural relations? Would a French-born ruler align the nation with dramatically new ideals and transform it overnight into a different political entity? Would the architecture of eighteenth-century Spain abandon its traditions of Roman influence and character for a new French version of contemporary fashion and taste? These questions and many others related to the cultural relations between Spain and Rome peaked at the start of the eighteenth century, when Philippe, Duc d’Anjou (1683-1746), the first Bourbon king of the dynasty that still rules Spain today, succeeded the Hapsburg Charles II in a heavily disputed final testament.
World History
