Janus: Estudios sobre el Siglo de Oro (Jul 2012)
Empresas o divisas de Isabel de Castilla y Fernando de Aragón (los Reyes Católicos)
Abstract
The kings Isabel I of Castile (1451-1504) and Fernando II of Aragon (1452-1516), well-known with Catholic Monarchs title, granted by Pope Alexander VI in 1496, made wide use of devises or imprese as a personal way of representation. Some of them were incorporated to the coat of arms of Spain during their reign, and today we can still see them sculptured in the stone of buildings of 15th and 16th centuries, painted in walls or ceilings or embroidered in flags. Several historians and philologists have tried to make sense of the main imprese used by these kings, but they have succeeded only partially. Emblems provide important information in order to understand the meaning (as it was in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries) of the imprese with the motto TANTO MONTA. Besides that well-known devise, the Catholic Monarchs used others to which little attention has been paid till now.
