ABOUT THIS BOOK

A sumptuous history of Golden Age Spain that explores the irresistible tension between heavenly and earthly realms.

Incomparable Realms offers a vision of Spanish culture and society during the so-called Golden Age, the period from 1500 to 1700 when Spain unexpectedly rose to become the dominant European power. But in what ways was this a Golden Age, and for whom? The relationship between the Habsburg monarchy and the Roman Catholic Church shaped the period, with both constructing narratives to bind Spanish society together. Incomparable Realms unpicks the impact of these two historical forces on thought and culture and examines the people and perspectives such powerful projections sought to eradicate.

The book shows that the tension between the heavenly and earthly realms, and in particular the struggle between the spiritual and the corporeal, defines Golden Age culture. In art and literature, mystical theology and moral polemic, ideology, doctrine, and everyday life, the problematic pull of the body and the material world is the unacknowledged force behind early modern Spain. Life is a dream, as the title of Calderón’s famous play of the period proclaimed, but there is always a body dreaming it.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Jeremy Robbins is the Forbes Professor of Hispanic Studies at the University of Edinburgh. His books include Arts of Perception: The Epistemological Mentality of the Spanish Baroque, 1580–1720.

REVIEWS

"A brilliant account of the Spanish monarchy in its 'Golden Age,' when it was the foremost power in Europe and ruled a global empire. This is an exceptional achievement by one of the very best cultural historians in the field, combining the art, architecture, literature, social values, political ideas, religious practices, and especially, the thought of Renaissance and Baroque Spain in a coherent and convincing synthesis. Grounded in solid, up-to-date scholarship, it is an invaluable resource for historians, while its lucid style makes this fascinating subject accessible to the general reader. Destined to become a classic of European cultural history."

— Edwin Williamson, author of "The Penguin History of Latin America"

"Another fundamental work by one of Britain’s foremost scholars on the Spanish Golden Age. Robbins delivers a masterful analysis of the intellectual, literary, and visual culture of the global Hispanic world in the early modern period."

— Rodrigo Cacho, professor of early modern Iberian and Latin American literature, University of Cambridge

"In this admirable and learned study Robbins reassesses the Spain of popular imagination—'angels and austerity, morality and morbidity; Habsburg power and discrete opulence'—to examine afresh its culture and society, its art, literature, mystical theology, its ideology, doctrine, and 'moral polemic.'...One of the book's significant strengths is the author's close and revealing reading of the paintings, never less than fascinating, illuminating, and authoritative. The book includes thirty-nine color plates and numerous black-and-white images embedded in the text that immeasurably add to the reader's understanding."

— Catholic Herald

"The book offers a superb introduction to a period of imperial brutality. . . Handsomely illustrated with color reproductions of stunning works. Incomparable Realms is a testament to the imbrication and the incommensurability of the earthly and sublime."

— Times Literary Supplement

"There’s a great deal to ponder in this book: the ties between monarchy and Church, which legitimated a non-Spanish dynasty; Spanish artists’ preoccupation with mirrors (Velázquez’s Las Meninas) and illusion; how the tension between heavenly and earthly realms defines Golden Age culture. Calderon wrote, in his play of the same title, that life is a dream, but Robbins notes, there was always a body dreaming it. The illustrations alone make Robbins’s book worth purchasing, but it is also a defining study of a seminal period in the history of Western art."

— Library Journal (starred review)

"This remarkably rich and readable study does an excellent job of exploring many of the subtle and fascinating complexities (and occasional paradoxes) of a culture that is easily caricatured and thereby misunderstood . . . The book’s prose is lucid. It is lavishly illustrated (with 70 images, including 39 in colour). It is full of interest—particularly suited to students and to the general reader, though even experts will find a good deal of it stimulating. I would have liked it to have been twice as long, but, even as it is, Incomparable Realms resembles a Schatzkammer of Spanish Habsburg culture."

— Modern Language Review

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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