Nápoles en la red de cortes virreinales de la monarquía de los Austrias

Resum

This essay seeks for a dialogue between the Americanist historiography and the Italianist historiography to better understand some cultural and artistic processes that affected the whole Habsburg Spanish monarchy, a polycentric monarchy. From the study of Naples, it proposes a revision of the history of the Viceregal courts in the framework of an entangled history of art. Among the Italian and the American courts agents used to travel, and with them, many objects and models for the building of new palaces or portrait galleries circulated in a big scale. In every court the viceroy imagined specific strategies of negotiation with the urban spaces, especially those with political significance, where the memory of previous households was alive. This essay approaches Naples, from a comparative perspective with other courts, in order to understand how the viceroy managed the memory of ancient rulers of the city, throw patronage and soft power.