In 1526 Emperor Charles V arranged the wedding of Ferdinand of Aragon, the dethroned heir of Naples, to Germana de Foix, the widow of Ferdinand the Catholic, and appointed them viceroys of Valencia. In the decade that followed, these two royal personas invited some of the best poets and musicians to their Valencian palace with the purpose of recreating the aulic life that they had enjoyed in their youth. In Ilusión áulica e imaginación caballeresca en El Cortesano de Luis Milán, Ignacio López Alemany applies the concept of “soft power” created by George Duby and Norbert Elias to interpret its descriptions of games, banquets, conversations, performances, literary competitions, and chivalric recreations–in other words, to examine every aspect of the Valencian courtly culture. This extraordinarily rich book addresses several understudied fields: Spanish literature outside of Castile, court celebrations and entertainments, drama, and literary works not belonging to the major genres
