Forthcoming RSA Session
Berlin, March 26-28, 2015
One foot in and out of the palace
Female
quarters and flexibility at the Habsburg court
Organizers:
Annemarie Jordan Gschwend, Centro de
História d’Aquém e d’Além Mar, Switzerland and Lisbon, Portugal
Vanessa
de Cruz Media, Villa I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian
Renaissance Studies
Chair: Professor
Sheila ffolliott, Professor Emeritus, George Mason University
Session Abstract:
Female royal spaces in Spanish palaces have not received the attention
they deserve. Recent studies have focused on royal residences in Madrid; the quarters
assigned queens, princesses and their female retinues, however, remain largely
unexplored. This session examines public and private feminine spaces at Philip II’s court: under scrutiny, Princess Juana of
Austria, Queen Ana of Austria, Empress Maria of Austria, and the aristocratic
ladies who served them. These royal and noble women were highly educated,
political women, who circulated between private, public, male and female
spaces, with great flexibility. However, feminine lodgings remained pop up
spaces, re-adapted at a moment’s notice. Large female households and lack of space created persistent
housing problems for Philip II. Where to lodge these royal women and their
ladies? Archival documents and correspondence regarding former royal palaces
and convents reveal how Spanish female quarters were organized between 1559 and
1603.
Papers:
Where did
Juana of Austria, Princess of Portugal, sleep?
Annemarie Jordan
Gschwend
Where is
my room? Lodging Ladies-in-Waiting at the Spanish Court
Vanessa de Cruz
Medina
