Biography

Vanessa de Cruz Medina recently completed a “Juan de la Cierva” Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Fundación Carlos de Amberes, Madrid. She received her Ph.D. in History with a dissertation on Letter Writing, Women and the Court during the Spanish Golden Age (Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2010). Vanessa has contributed chapters for several books and journals about Habsburg women, their ladies-in-waiting and the cultural and political relationships between Spain and the Imperial court. Her monograph Una dama en la corte de Felipe II: cartas de Ana de Dietrichstein a su madre, Margarita de Cardona has been published by the Charles University of Prague (2013).

Project Summary

This project will analyze the presence and impact of Italian style on the artistic collection of the Descalzas Reales convent in Madrid during the seventeenth century. It focuses in particular on the gifts the Medici and Este families sent to Margaret of Austria, Caterina d’Este and Ana Dorotea of Austria.