The edited collection of essays Art, Travel, and Exchange between Iberia and Global Geographies consists of thirteen individual chapters along with an introduction. There are numerous figures throughout the volume, most of which are in color. The edited collection would be accessible to readers who might not have a strong understanding of the history and artistic styles of Iberia, due to the introduction’s thorough overview of history, style, and historiography of Iberian art and artistic exchange.
The volume’s editors, Constanza Beltrami and Sylvia Alvares-Correa, have authored a substantial introduction to the book that begins with an explanation of the intermingling of styles often found in the art and architecture of the medieval Iberian Peninsula that in other regions might be viewed as having developed in a more linear manner (e.g., Gothic and Renaissance) (1-7, 13). Defining the scope of the book as between the years 1400-1550, the introduction also includes an overview of Iberian history, trade, and territorial divisions, including emphasis on the idea that consideration of that period must include the “Mediterranean, Atlantic, and Asian places” under broader Spanish and Portuguese control (11-12), which the multi-author volume is able to achieve in a collaborative manner through inclusion of authors with various geographic specialties. As Beltrami and Alvares-Correa explain, an important premise of the essays in this volume is that of "transculturation,” meaning “that ideas and objects are not passively received, but actively adapted, assimilated, or accommodated by their new audiences” (32).
The first section of the volume, “Traveling Artists,” consists of three essays each examining different avenues of exchange. In the first, Encarna Montero Tortajada considers the works of Marçal de Sas, an artist of German origin working in Valencia in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. As the author indicates, most studies of Marçal have focused on stylistic analysis, but her approach is “more aligned to social history” (73). The essay includes a discussion of the circumstances that may have brought Marçal to Valencia; his Valencian works; and his documented social connections, collaborators, and patrons (54-70). Finally, it includes a helpful timeline of the artist’s career at the end (75).
While Montero Tortajada’s essay considers a traveling artist who came to Iberia, the next essay of the “Traveling Artists” section, by Piers Baker-Bates, discusses Iberian artists working in Italy between 1420 and 1527. In its first section, the chapter considers the current state of scholarship, noting that studies of artistic exchange between Iberia and Italy tend to focus on Italy’s export of artists and style to Iberia or links between Valencia and the Borgia Popes, but Baker-Bates argues that exchange was more nuanced and broader than this (85-89). Subsequent sections of the essay support this with specific examples, beginning with more famous artists (Pedro Fernández, Pedro Berruguete, and Alonso Berruguete) before a section on several other Iberian artists about whom much less is known (89-99). At its outset, the author expressed that the work should serve as “a preliminary essay for new research on concepts of Iberian artistic mobility in Italy” (83). The author achieves this goal while also making a strong case for the presence of Iberian artists in Italy and laying the groundwork for future research on these artists.
Concluding this section, Marco Silvestri offers a study of two stone masons by the same name, Toribio de Alcaraz, who came from Iberia to the Americas, one to New Spain and the other to the Viceroyalty of Peru. Silvestri traces the artists’ family networks, residencies, artist associations, and elite connections through archival research (110-132). The essay also addresses the role of Amerindian artisans of the period (132-135). While this latter portion of the essay felt too brief, the chapter is an excellent contribution to the section on traveling artists, balancing the earlier essays on movement within Europe. Together the three essays in this section consider connections with Germany, Italy, New Spain, and the Viceroy of Peru while also expanding knowledge of the careers and networks of individual Iberian artists.
The next section, “Material Culture on the Move,” consists of five essays examining the movement of objects rather than artists. The first, by Nelleke de Vries, considers the circulation of Martin Schongauer’s prints and their impact on Castilian and Aragonese painters. The author makes a strong case for the prolific circulation of Schongauer’s works in Northern Europe and probable evidence of their presence in Iberia through analysis of numerous ways that the works could have circulated in the fifteenth century and were present by the sixteenth (150-173). De Vries notes that as parallels between imported prints and Iberian compositions are considered they “should not be characterised as the passive reception of the German prototypes by local artists” (168) but rather he argues that the prints were in artists’ workshops and “functioned as models to which the commissioners and donors could refer” (169). While a more developed understanding of the model books and studio contents of fifteenth century Castilian and Aragonese painters would bolster arguments for precise parallels between the prints and specific Iberian works, this essay paves a path for that future research by tracing the networks through which Northern prints would come to Iberia.
Similarly considering the circulation of prints but this time through specific focus on the Legend of Troy, María Sanz Julián analyzes imagery from the Legend printed in Augsburg in 1474. She shows that the illustrations in that incunable incorporated reused imagery from a variety of sources, including full blocks from a text of the life of Alexander the Great and individual elements from other sources (179-190). Sanz Julián points to a similar pattern existing in Castilian manuscripts but argues that this transfer of imagery was less about direct copying (except in instances where a block was reused from one manuscript to the next) (191-195). Instead, she points to an “interposition of sources” (193) and notes “it is incredibly difficult to establish the location of an archetype” (194). In this regard, the author offers a sound explanation of how imagery may have spread and come to be in multiple texts.
Continuing the theme of “Material Culture on the Move,” Maria Vittoria Spissu’s essay examines how Hispano Flemish style and the iconography of the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin helped to assimilate local populations in area controlled by one of the Iberian monarchs. Through surviving panels of a Seven Sorrows altarpiece by Pietro Cavaro, Spissu considers its potential patronage, connections to the Cult of the Seven Sorrows, and links to the Workshop of Quentin Metsys (201-225). While some of the stylistic and iconographic parallels between specific works of art would benefit from further evidence of artistic exchange, there is a clear argument for the prevalence of the Seven Sorrows and the Hispano-Flemish style in these peripheral territories of the Iberian monarchies; its persistence into the seventeenth century and into New Spain is supported at the end of the chapter with consideration of how the Seven Sorrows led to images of La Soledad (225-232).
Shifting focus from the prints and paintings of the earlier chapters in this section, the final two chapters focus on ceramic works and polychrome tiles. Luís Urbano Afonso offers a well-researched discussion of the import and use of porcelain in Portugal using archival and archaeological evidence to support the idea that porcelain’s presence came as early as 1498 and intensified into the sixteenth century (244-245). Through examination of this evidence, he also indicates a likelihood that porcelain was owned by lower social classes in addition to the upper class (250, 258-263). Next, Céline Ventura Teixeira considers the motifs found on earthenware tiles (azulejos) and how these were impacted by the movement of artists and merchants as well as portable objects such as prints; ceramics, particularly Chinese porcelain; and metalwork (268-297). Together the five essays of this section demonstrate that artistic exchange between Iberia and other regions was common and impacted a range of media, occurring particularly through portable objects like prints, ceramic vessels, and tiles.
The book’s final section, “Beyond Movement,” points to the complexity of tracing precise connections between works of art and instead examines broader patterns of exchange. It begins with an essay by Joana Balsa de Pinho on Lisbon’s All Saints Royal Hospital, built in the late fifteenth century and based on Italian hospital architecture. The essay proposes that it was the first Iberian hospital to follow Italian models (324), and that knowledge of these Italian structures likely came from several Italian sources rather than a single antecedent (312-330). Similarly, Elena Paulino Montero’s essay, second in the section, considers architectural constructions, in this case, early masonry constructions on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. Based on archival evidence and studies of existing structures, she demonstrates parallels with the building types extant in Iberia during the same period while discussing their popularity among the elite of the island (339-354). As the author explains, Caribbean visual culture has often been viewed as transitional and has been neglected in scholarship (340); this chapter makes a strong contribution toward addressing that gap.
Furthering the concept of broader connections between artists, Eva March’s next essay discusses similarities between Lluís Dalmau’s Virgin of the Councillors and Stefan Lochner’s Altarpiece of the City’s Patron Saints. Her essay argues for various parallels between the two works, such as their patronage by city councils and the shared elements of van Eyck’s new innovations (355-367). Although she indicates that both artists may have had connect with the Ghent Altarpiece or other van Eyck works (364-379), the author does not suggest the direct emulation of a particular van Eyck work. Instead, she explains that “cross-border similarities in art were not always the result of direct exchange” (378). Thus, like the two architecturally focused essays, this study also demonstrates that similarities in works often stem from contact with multiple sources, which is an important observation about artistic exchange.
Concluding the volume, two essays address the use of technical analysis as part of examinations of painted works from Iberia. The first of these considers how Jorge Alfonso modeled his Apparition of the Angel to Saints Claire, Agnes, and Colette after a work by Quentin Metsys of the same scene. Through technical analysis of the artists’ processes, the authors demonstrate that “even though one of the paintings was the reference for the other, they were made according to different regional traditions” (392). Thus, the essay provides an important contribution to the discussion of complexities when considering transmission of ideas or motifs from one artist to another by acknowledging that two works with similar motifs or iconography may be made with different artistic traditions or practices. Last in the collection Bart Fransen, Steven Saverwyns, and Armelle Weitz analyze a panel depicting a female saint that they argue once belonged to the altarpiece made by Juan de Flandes for the University of Salamanca chapel (403-425). Together these two chapters demonstrate the importance of technical analysis to providing a stronger understanding of the pathways and limitations of artistic exchange as well as the capabilities of that technology for helping to identify, reunite, and date missing pieces of multifaceted works like the altarpiece from the University of Salamanca chapel.
Taken as a whole, this volume represents a monumental undertaking in understanding the reach and connections that Iberia had during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Considering the movement of artists first, then the movement of objects, and finally less traditional ways of thinking about and analyzing artistic exchange, the volume offers a thoughtful and well-researched exploration of artistic connections. Returning to the editors’ premise that the volume’s essays demonstrate “transculturization” (32), most essays in this collection clearly support this idea and provide well-researched, specific examples of Iberia’s connections. The volume serves not only to advance the study of fifteenth and sixteenth-century Iberian artists but also to situate them within a broader global context.