Madrid

In 1561 the king of Spain, PHILIP II, made Madrid the capital of the Spanish empire. Before then, Madrid had been a small, unimportant market town in the kingdom of Castile. The Renaissance appeared late in Madrid and the rest of Castile, and its styles and ideas were never fully accepted. In Madrid, the Renaissance consisted mostly in the use of ancient Greek and Roman themes in religious architecture, which remained essentially Gothic*.

Between 1560 and 1630, the population of Madrid increased dramatically, rising from 20,000 to 130,000 inhabitants. Most city residents worked as servants or suppliers for a small group of nobles and church and public officials. The royal court, housed in the Alcázar, became the center of intellectual life, and the monarchy was the most important patron* of the arts. The royal collections of Philip II included more than 1,500 paintings by Flemish* and Italian masters, especially TITIAN.

Painters, poets, and playwrights flocked to Madrid in search of patrons. The playwrights Pedro CALDERÓN DE LA BARCA and Lope Félix de VEGA CARPIO created a golden age of drama in the late 1500s and early 1600s. The first printing press was established in 1566, and by 1600 Madrid led the publishing business in Spain. For the most part, however, Madrid became a center of Baroque* rather than Renaissance culture. Baroque spectacles dominated city life, from religious processions and pageants to bullfights and other celebrations. Because Spanish kings preferred to build palaces and hunting parks in the countryside, relatively few Renaissance-style buildings or public spaces appeared in Madrid.

* Gothic: style of architecture characterized by pointed arches and high, thin walls supported by flying buttresses
* patron: supporter or financial sponsor of an artist or writer
* Flemish: relating to Flanders, a region along the coasts of present-day Belgium, France, and the Netherlands
* Baroque: artistic style of the 1600s characterized by movement, drama, and grandness of scale