As the first comprehensive volume devoted entirely to women of both the Spanish and Austrian Habsburg royal dynasties spanning the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries this interdisciplinary collection illuminates their complex and often contradictory political functions and their interrelations across early modern national borders. The essays in this volume investigate the lives of six Habsburg women who as queens consort and queen regent duchesses a vicereine and a nun left an indelible mark on the diplomatic and cultural map of early modern Europe. Contributors examine the national and transnational impact of these notable women through their biographies and explore how they transferred their cultural religious and political traditions as the women moved from one court to another. Early Modern Habsburg Women investigates the complex lives of Philip II’s daughter the Infanta Catalina Micaela (1567-1597); her daughter Margherita of Savoy Vicereine of Portugal (1589-1655); and Maria Maddalena of Austria Grand Duchess of Florence (1589-1631). The second generation of Habsburg women that the volume addresses includes Philip IV’s first wife Isabel of Borbón (1602-1644) who became a Habsburg by marriage; Rudolph II’s daughter Sor Ana Dorotea (1611-1694) the only Habsburg nun in the collection; and Philip IV’s second wife Mariana of Austria (1634-1696) queen regent and mother to the last Spanish Habsburg. Through archival documents pictorial and historical accounts literature and correspondence as well as cultural artifacts such as paintings jewelry and garments this volume brings to light the impact of Habsburg women in the broader historical political and cultural contexts. The essays fill a scholarly need by covering various phases of the lives of early modern royal women who often struggled to sustain their family loyalty while at the service of a foreign court even when protecting and preparing their heirs for rule a |Early Modern Habsburg Women Transnational Contexts Cultural Conflicts Dynastic Continuities
