Morisco Knights in Renaissance Spain - (Studies in Early Modern European History) by Elizabeth Terry-Roisin (Hardcover)

About the Book

This book argues that Renaissance culture and chivalric culture were both central to how "nobility" was sought and defined in early modern Spain. It is the first monograph in English to examine the history and self-fashioning of the famous Granada Venegas family, Morisco knights from Granada, and to analyse the remnants of their family archive in Genoa.

Book Synopsis

How does a Morisco enter the Spanish nobility? This book reveals the cultural strategies through which a family of converts from Islam to Christianity overcame limpieza de sangre laws, rose in social status, avoided King Philip III's Morisco expulsions of 1609-14, and achieved a noble title. Drawing on archival sources from both Spain and Italy to re-create the original family archive, this book follows the Granada Venegas family from Granada, to Madrid, to the dusty Andalucían town of Campotéjar, of which they became Marquises, and finally to Italy. Their descendants would serve as Doges of Genoa in the eighteenth century.

From the Back Cover

Morisco knights in renaissance Spain is a groundbreaking study of class, psychology, and cultural transformation in early modern Spain. Through a rich analysis of military orders, poetry, literature, family libraries, and other archival sources, this book reveals how Renaissance, chivalric, and court cultures served as powerful vehicles for social mobility.

At the heart of the study is the elite Morisco Granada Venegas family. Descendants of the Sultans of Nasrid Granada, their Muslim lineage was impossible to conceal. To survive limpieza de sangre laws (blood-purity laws) and avoid King Philip III's Morisco expulsions of 1609-14, they engaged in complex and intense self-fashioning. In each chapter, they reached for honors higher than those they already held, ultimately succeeding in becoming titled nobility.

Because of the family's success, their strategies offer rare insight into what "nobility" meant in early modern Spain and how it was constructed. Ultimately, they became Mediterranean elites when they transitioned to life in Genoa in the modern period. Morisco knights in renaissance Spain is the first English-language monograph tracing the transformations and strategies of the Granada Venegas family.

About the Author

Elizabeth A. Terry-Roisin is Assistant Professor of History at Florida International University