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