TY - BOOK AU - Spivakovsky,Erika TI - Son of the Alhambra: Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, 1504-1575 SN - 9781477303122 AV - DP175.H8 S65eb U1 - 946/.04/0924 22 PY - 2014///] CY - Austin PB - University of Texas Press KW - Diplomats KW - Spain KW - Biography KW - Governors KW - Granada KW - Historians KW - Novelists KW - Poets KW - BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / General KW - bisacsh N1 - Frontmatter --; PREFACE --; CONTENTS --; ILLUSTRATIONS --; 1. Background --; 2. Formative Years, to 1529 --; 3. In the Emperor's Service, 1532-1538 --; 4. Venice, 1539-1540 --; 5. Growing Spanish-French Hostility, 1540-1544 --; 6. Trent, 1545-1546 --; 7. Imperialism in Action, 1547-1549 --; 8. Rome, 1547 --; 9. Spiritual War, 1547-1548 --; 10. Change in the Papacy, 1549-1550 --; 11. The Castle of Siena, 1547-1551 --; 12. The War of Parma, 1550-1552 --; 13. The Debacle, 1552 --; 14. Honor Saved, 1553 --; 15. A Splendid Era Ends, 1554-1559 --; 16. At the Court of Philip II, 1559-1568 --; 17. The War of Granada, 1569-1571 --; 18. Benefactor of His King, to 1575 --; Epilogue --; Appendix --; Bibliography --; Index; restricted access N2 - Last of the Spanish Renaissance men, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza (1504–1575) was a master of the humanist disciplines as well as an active diplomat whose correspondence provides insight into the workings of power politics in the first post-Machiavellian decades. This account of Mendoza's diplomatic career is a living commentary on the mid-sixteenth century, the time of the Spanish Inquisition and the Reformation, with its upheavals in the European balance of power. Mendoza served as ambassador of Charles V to Venice and Rome and as governor of Siena. His political life complements the reign of the Emperor whose ambition was to become a universal monarch. An interesting contradiction in Mendoza's thought—his humanist theories versus personal ambition—prevented him from successful implemention of tyrannical imperial policies. His role in the government of the Holy Roman Empire shows how the exertion of imperialist power, humanist ethics notwithstanding, inevitably entails corruption, hypocrisy, greed, and imbalance in the one who tries to wield this power. Gifted to the point of universal genius, Mendoza was perhaps the foremost representative of the splendid but little-known epoch of Spanish humanism, the era between the death of Queen Isabel (1504) and the abdication of her grandson Charles V (1556). Spain's short-lived Renaissance came to an abrupt end with the accession of Philip II and the almost simultaneous onset of the Counter Reformation. To this changed Spain, under monolithic thought control now exacted and enforced by monarch and Inquisition, Mendoza returned to live the last third of his life, mostly in obscurity, and in the last few years in royal disgrace. Based on primary sources, this first biography of Mendoza in English also examines the relevance of some of Don Diego's disputed literary works to the legend that grew up around him as a spokesman for latent unorthodox opinion UR - https://doi.org/10.7560/700932 UR - https://www.degruyter.com/isbn/9781477303122 UR - https://www.degruyter.com/document/cover/isbn/9781477303122/original ER -