Empress Isabel of Portugal was born in a changing word, during which the Middle Ages slowly give way to the renascence.
Five years before her birth, Vasco da Gama reached India, arriving in Calicut in May of 1498. Two years, later Pedro Alvares Cabral disembarked on what is now modernday Brazil. Later the Portuguese also reached Japan in southeast Asia.
Lisbon became the epicenter of this first version of a globalized World. Spices like pepper and cinnamon came from India. From China, Silk and porcelain, which was an absolute novelty in Europe. Elephants and rhinoceros where part of the royal stables, exotic animals’ unseen in Europe since the roman empire. Like Hanno, the Indian elephant offered to the Pope by King Manuel, Isabel´s father, and immortalized by the hand of Raphael.
The social fabric of the city also changed, with the arrival of travelers, merchants and enslaved people from all over the world.
It´s in this effervescent word, full of contrasts and in permanent change that Isabel was born and raised, between the medieval, the humanist and the exotic. Her back ground would affect her vision of the word and her personality as an adult and, above all, as an empress. It comes as no surprise seeing her being gifted jewelry from India or, later in life, exchanging letters with Cortez in the New World.
So, on this this video, I´m going to try to discover who was the woman behind the Titian portrait that immortalized her.



Sourses:

Buescu, Ana Isabel (2008). D. João III. Círculo de Leitores: Lisboa.
Sobral Neto, Margarida (2011). D. Isabel de Portugal, Imperatriz Perfeitíssima 15031539. QuidNovi: Vila do Conde. (https://eg.uc.pt/bitstream/10316/8528...)
Silva, João Ricardo Eusébio (2010). Estrela Clara da Aurora: Isabel de Portugal (15031539). Infância e educação de uma infanta de Portugal. Dissertação de Mestrado apresentada ao Departamento de História da Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas: Lisboa.
(https://run.unl.pt/handle/10362/5449)

#isabellaofportugal #charlesv #history


Into The Past 2021