The Marquis of Santillana, passionate bibliophile and artistic promoter

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Cultured and powerful, curious and cosmopolitan, lover of knowledge and defender of beauty, Íñigo López de Mendoza, Marquis of Santillana (1398-1458), was one of the most important figures of the 15th century in the Iberian Peninsula. In addition to statesmangreat poethistorian of literature and passionate bibliophile (he treasured one of the best libraries of the time), the facet of this great humanist and enlightened artist as an artistic promoter is less well known. Precisely, the focus of the new Prado exhibition is focused on it, which will remain open until January 8, 2023.

It has had the collaboration of the National Library, where there is a second exhibition, in this case on the library of the Marquis. This institution treasures 63 jewels thanks to the purchase of the osuna legacy by the Spanish State in the 19th century. It has been curated by Isabel Ruiz de Elvira, director of the Department of Manuscripts, Incunabula and Rares of the BNE.

Two young people admire some paintings by Jorge Inglés exhibited in the Prado

Prado Museum

The origin of this double exposure goes back to an idea they had a few years ago Javier Docampo and Fernando Villasenor, medieval book specialists and both deceased. The project has been taken up again, although under a new perspective. Prado’s proposal, ‘The Marquis of Santillana. Images and letters’, is a small dossier exhibition focused on research, which is located in room 57A of the Villanueva building, converted into a kind of ‘cabinet of wonders’, with golden doors.

It is presided over by the spectacular ‘Altarpiece of the Joys of Santa Maria’, masterpiece of George English, whose innovative iconography we see with new eyes. Deposited in the art gallery since 2011 by the 19th Duke of Infantado, his descendants (Almudena de Arteaga, Duchess of Infantado, and Iván de Arteaga, Marquis of Ariza) have continued to extend the deposit every five years. It was commissioned by the Marquis of Santillana to Jorge Inglés to decorate the main altar of the church of the San Salvador hospital in Buitrago, a charitable institution founded by the nobleman to save his soul. In it appear the portraits of the Marquis and his wife. The exhibition emphasizes the nobleman’s interest in the most innovative artistic trends of his time, especially in Flanders and Italy.

Detail of ‘Saint George and the Dragon’, by Jorge Inglés, deposited in the Prado for two years

Leiden Collection, Nueva York

Four other paintings by the Castilian nobleman’s favorite artist also hang in the room. Three of them come from the old altarpiece of the church of Our Lady of the Assumption of Villasandino, in Burgos: a ‘Nativity’, the ‘Prophet David’ and the ‘Presentation of Jesus in the temple’. The first two, from a private collection, and the third, owned by Ars Casacuberta Marsans, from Barcelona. To them is added a ‘Saint George and the dragon’, which New York Leiden Collection deposited in the Prado for two years and had not been seen in Spain. The elegant and nostalgic saint wears white steel armor. It forms part of a triptych that the Marquis commissioned from Jorge Inglés: an altarpiece dedicated to Santiago, San Sebastián and San Jorge for the right altar of the Buitrago hospital church. Three saints venerated as models and protectors of medieval chivalry in the Christian West.

The exhibition is completed by a marble relief with the effigy of Alfonso V the Magnanimous and two medals of Alfonso V of Aragón and Íñigo Dávalos, the work of Pisanello (outstanding contemporary bibliophiles, like Nuño de Guzmán), as well as a selection of fifteen of the best and most exquisite illuminated manuscripts from the Marquis’s collection, most of them from the National Library. One of his songbooks is included (they collected a selection of the nobleman’s poems), which was conceived for his nephew Gómez Manrique’s.

The exhibition’s curator, Joan Molina, head of the Prado’s Department of Spanish Gothic Painting, underlines the importance of luxury books in the 15th century, not only as examples of a bibliophile passion, but also as objects that brought fame and prestige to those who owned them: «They were extremely valuable at the time, exclusive coveted objects, desired. They would be the equivalent today to a Ferrari Testarossa or a yate. Books, in the hands of these humanists, are much more than containers for texts. They are powerful artifacts to weave alliances and diplomatic relations«. Aware of this, the Marquis of Santillana, a passionate collector of these sumptuous luxury books, hired the best translators, illuminators, miniaturists and bookbinders at his service. In addition to the Prado and the National Library, which have organized two cycles of conferences, there is a third major cultural institution in this country, the Royal Spanish Academy, which on the 26th of this month will hold an academic conference on the Marquis of Santillana.

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