Spain and Portugal 1492-1822

Abstract

Politics, economy, religion and art set intertwined paths between the 1400s and the early 1800s in the Iberian Peninsula. While the Habsburg dynasty was central for the Humanistic flourishing of Spain, the Avis dynasty established the transition from Middle to Early Modern Ages in Portugal. By the mid-sixteenth century, conditions were set for the circulation of expertise and the production of pure Renaissance structures. Yet, the strong presence of the ecclesiastical power, through Inquisition and Counter-Reformation, and its austere design of buildings that avoided ornamentation, refrained architecture from evolving towards an international Mannerist assumption. Nevertheless, both dynasties were responsible for an overseas expansion that homed in fame and resources. These would be central for an explosion of Baroque creativity by the late-1600s and during the eighteenth century, when non-canonical forms and intensive adornment would punctuate the spatial scene of Spain, Portugal and their colonies. Eventually, Academicism and Enlightenment, as well as the Napoleonic invasions, would challenge the absolutist regimes and open the way to nineteenth-century political changes and the return of classical language.