Spanish Exemplary Rulership? Antonio de Guevara’s Relox de Príncipes (1529) in English (1557) and Dutch (1578) Translation

Open Access
Authors
Publication date 2020
Host editors
  • Y. Rodríguez Pérez
Book title Literary Hispanophobia and Hispanophilia in Britain and the Low Countries (1550-1850)
ISBN
  • 9789462989375
ISBN (electronic)
  • 9789048541935
Series Heritage and Memory Studies
Chapter 2
Pages (from-to) 69-92
Number of pages 24
Publisher Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press
Organisations
  • Faculty of Humanities (FGw) - Amsterdam Institute for Humanities Research (AIHR) - Amsterdam School for Regional, Transnational and European Studies (ARTES)
Abstract
The mirror-for-princes Relox de príncipes (1529) by Antonio de Guevara (1481-1545) compared Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain Charles V (1500-1558) to the celebrated stoic Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, with the two being equal in wisdom, sense of justice and clemency, and exemplary rulership. Thereafter, royal and higher-class Spaniards fashioned themselves as contemporary Aurelii, making the book a symbol of the superiority of Spaniards and Spain. However, countries where the Relox was read in translation had more nuanced or negative perspectives on Spaniards. This chapter delves into how proto-national attitudes towards Spaniards are decisive for the English (1557) and Dutch (1578) translations of the Relox, fashioning Aurelius as an exemplar for their own non-Spanish rulers and negotiating Hispanophilic and Hispanophobic Spanish representations.
Document type Chapter
Language English
Published at https://doi.org/10.26530/OAPEN_1006718 https://doi.org/10.1515/9789048541935
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Spanish Exemplary Rulership (Final published version)
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