On October 2, 1700, the young Hapsburg king Charles II, terminally ill and heirless, declared that the throne of Spain should pass to the French duke of Anjou, Philip, grandson of Louis XIV, whose wife Maria Teresa was the eldest daughter of the Spanish Hapsburg Philip IV (r. 1621-65), who preceded Charles (Kamen 2001). Charles had been torn between two candidates, the Austrian Emperor Leopold I’s younger son, the Archduke Charles, and Louis XIV’s grandson, Philip, so he turned to the Neapolitan pope Innocent XII Pignatelli for advice on his succession (Martin Marcos 2007). After consulting privately with various cardinals, the Pope conveyed his endorsement of the French candidate to the recently appointed Spanish ambassador in Rome, Don Juan Francisco Pacheco de Mendoza y Toledo, Duke of Uceda. Charles though was not alone in facing his mortality, as Innocent XII fell ill on August 1, 1700, and died before the month of September was over. His death threw the Vatican into an unexpected conclave of tremendous political importance, as the balance of power in Europe hung on two turbulent successions. Though the terms of Louis XIV’s marriage to Maria Teresa had precluded any claims to the Spanish throne by either monarch, or indeed her descendants, the final will of Charles II made any such renunciations seem irrelevant. And so on November 1, 1700, the last of the Spanish Hapsburg kings died and the succession of the French duke of Anjou as Philip V began, much to the concern of western Europeans who feared that a union between France and Spain would thrust the Continent into turmoil, with England, the United Provinces and Austria ready to pounce. The new Pope, Clement XI
Albani, from Urbino, had no political allegiance to Spain, France, or Austria, and therefore remained ambiguously neutral.
Quite naturally, France assumed that the political and cultural organization of Spain would be modeled upon that of her own court. Louis’ often quoted advice to his grandson reveals his determination to diffuse French influence not only in Spain but also throughout Europe: “[b]e a good Spaniard; that is now your first duty; but remember you were born a Frenchman to uphold the union of the two nations. That is the means to make them happy and preserve the peace of Europe” (Saint-Simon 1899: 212). Such counsel was not entirely rooted in the King’s self-interest. France had secured a dominant position in Europe by the close of the seventeenth century, and she was the principal vehicle from which Enlightenment culture spread across the Pyrenees and into the Iberian Peninsula. Yet, was Bourbon Spain really any different from Hapsburg Spain? As John Lynch has noted (1989: 1):
[t]he new dynasty did not suddenly transform the lives of the Spaniards, improve the quality of their government, or increase the power of their country. The year 1700 was not a parting of ways, a transition from weak to strong monarchy, from old to new empire, from depressed to buoyant economy. The decades before and after 1700 were a continuation of the unbroken course of Spanish history, merging into a middle ground of proximate solutions to permanent problems.
Certainly the Bourbons enhanced the welfare of Spain, introducing widespread political reforms and social programs that transformed the country from an imperial dynasty into a nation-state more in line with other European countries, but this was a slow process that required a clear sense of monarchical imagery and a careful balance between tradition and modernization (Herr 1958; Vazquez Gestal 2013).
From a cultural perspective, Spain was not a tabula rasa upon which the new Bourbon monarchs could simply paint their artistic visions. For nearly two centuries, the Hapsburgs had sustained a remarkably creative momentum, a “Golden Age,” contributing immeasurably to European and American civilization (Elliott 1977; Kamen 2005). These were the Hapsburgs of the Escorial, Madrid’s Plaza Mayor, El Greco, Velazquez, and Zurbaran, as well as the colonizers of the New World and all of the art and architecture that came with building a global empire. There is little disagreement about the remarkable success of Spain 1469-1700 under the Catholic monarchs and Hapsburg kings, and despite the so-called economic decline that occurred largely under Charles II, Spanish imports (particularly precious metals from America), population, and culture remained surprisingly robust at the end of the seventeenth century (Kamen 2004: 40-56).
At first, Philip’s introduction of French taste in matters of food, fashion, and furnishings was shocking to a society that valued its traditions (Kamen 2001: 8-9). Over time, however, the new monarch would accept Spanish customs and etiquette, becoming a champion of Spain (Vazquez Gestal 2013: 97 ff.). Political compromise was less evident, though Louis did encourage his grandson to make peace with Italy, and in particular the kingdom of Naples and the duchy of Milan, whose allegiance to Spain remained extremely tenuous (Kamen 2001: 17-22). The situation in Naples was particularly delicate as it was a fief of the church and shared a common border with the Papal States. Whoever controlled Naples could exert tremendous pressure on the Pope. Louis’ advice resulted in a six-month trip to Italy by Philip in 1702, when he visited the two capitals and had his first real encounter with Italian politics, art, and warfare.
Rome was even more complicated, as Clement XI’s neutrality with respect to the Spanish succession was in no way a convincing vote of confidence for either France or Spain, and in May 1702, the Allied forces, led by England and the United Provinces, with Portugal joining the following year, declared war on the two nations. Philip’s visit to Milan though proved to be immensely valuable as it was nearby in Emilia Romagna that he engaged in his first military activity, at a place called Santa Vittoria, near the town of Luzzara where the principal fighting between the Franco-Spanish forces and the Allied troops took place on August 15, 1702. Though the result was indecisive, Philip was encouraged by the possession of Luzzara, and shortly thereafter he left Italy for Spain in order to mobilize his military, and to be reunited with his new wife Marie Louise, the daughter of the duke of Savoy, a loyal ally of France.
The War of Spanish Succession (1702-13) was in effect a global crisis as it was concerned not just with the stability of Europe, but also trade in the Mediterranean, and control of the Americas (Kamen 1969; Alvarez-Ossorio Alvarino et al. 2007; Albareda Salvado 2010). Spain was also trapped, as it had always maintained close ties to Italy and the papacy (Martin Marcos 2011). So when Clement XI officially recognized the Austrian Archduke Charles on January 14, 1709, as the legitimate heir of Spain and “Re Cattolico,” Philip V followed with a decree on December 11 of the same year that ordered all remaining Spaniards in Rome to return to Spain within four months (Dandelet 2001: 215; Ochoa Brun 2002: 50). The representatives of Philip V in Rome - the Duke of Uceda, the Marquis of Monteleon and the Neapolitan Cardinal Francesco del Giudice - all abandoned the city, effectively closing the Spanish embassy, commonly known as the Palazzo di SpagnA.2 RIchard Herr (1958: 13) has noted that at the beginning of Philip’s reign:
[T]wo thirds of the appointments to Spanish church offices were made in Rome, and the pope enjoyed a large income from vacant Spanish sees and benefices and from the fees charged Spaniards in ecclesiastical courts. The Pope’s support of the Hapsburg pretender during the War of the Spanish Succession gave [Philip] an excuse to break off relations with the Holy See.
Ultimately, peace negotiations ended with the Treaties of Utrecht (April 1713) in which Spain ceded its European holdings, including the southern Netherlands, Sicily, Gibraltar and Menorca. All of Spain’s possessions in Italy, including Naples, Sardinia, and Milan, were handed over to the Empire by the French by the terms of the Treaty of Rastatt (March 6, 1714). Philip also had to renounce his claim to the French throne, though Spain and the Indies were formally guaranteed to him.
With peace established and relief that Spain had emerged as a politically unified nation with its colonies intact, Philip V set out on a new Mediterranean policy to address the loss of his Italian holdings (Leon Sanz 2010). This of course was helped immensely by the unexpected death of his wife Marie Louise in February 1714, and his subsequent marriage in December of the same year to the Italian Princess Elizabeth Farnese. Together Philip and Elizabeth would define the new Bourbon monarchy and determine to a great extent diplomacy in the Mediterranean. Like Philip, Elizabeth was initially hesitant to embrace Spanish customs. As noted by Kamen (2001: 104):
Elizabeth retained all her personal tastes and continued the preference at court for Italian and French style in dress. Unaccustomed to Spanish food, she had Italian wines, cheese and ham (notably that of Parma) specially imported for herself. All her clothes were made in Italy (later she also had them made in Paris), and even her Italian horses were imported. She was a great lover of the theatre but found the theatre in Madrid (performed moreover in a language she did not understand) unsatisfactory, and imported a troupe of Italian actors in 1718 to perform three times a week at the Pardo. All her innovations were an important step forward in bringing more sophistication to the court for like other foreigners who visited the peninsula in these years, she found Spain very provincial and restricted in its culture.
The new queen also effectively governed the country 1715-46, as Philip became increasingly plagued by mental illness (Vazquez Gestal 2013: 104-8). Through Elizabeth’s extraordinary agility and skill, and with the exceptional help of her advisers - the Italian Cardinal Giulio Alberoni, the Spanish statesman Jose de Grimaldo, and the Milanese-born Galician Jose Patino - a new policy towards Italy emerged, and the period of French political influence began to wane.
Culturally, however, French influence would continue throughout the century, even if a new emphasis on Italy would gradually supplant the former’s early supremacy. In that sense, Philip, guided by the advice of his former tutor Frangois Fenelon, the archbishop of Cambrai, was not politically absolutist like his grandfather, exercising instead royal authority in moderation (Kamen 2001: 223). There was also Spanish culture, which Philip and Elizabeth would gradually embrace. By the early eighteenth century Spain had amassed a rich architectural heritage that consisted of many Diverse approaches to design, planning, and decoration. On the one hand, there was Roman Spain with its ancient monuments scattered about the countryside, more recent Renaissance and Baroque interventions, and of course Spanish variants in Plateresque and Rococo surface decoration. On the other hand, there was the heritage of Medieval and Islamic building that dominated the peninsula from the fifth to the fifteenth centuries, culminating in the great cathedrals of Toledo, Leon, Burgos and Santiago, and the Mosque of Cordoba, and Alhambra Palace in Granada, among the many examples that are too numerous to mention. There were additional Northern European influences in Germanic, French, and Flemish styles that augmented the late-antique and Gothic architecture of Spain. Yet the architecture of the late seventeenth-century Hapsburgs remained for the most part true to Counter-Reformation Rome, and though Italian influence had in many areas adapted to Spanish regional traditions, her Roman forms were apparent. Culturally and artistically then, Philip found himself moderating between French, Italian, and native Spanish influences, resulting in a period of Late Baroque eclecticism that would last until his death in 1746, when his son Ferdinand, from his first wife Marie Louise, would succeed him as the first Spanish-born Bourbon on the throne.
World History
