The Academia de Bellas Artes and the age of crisis: affluence, art, and plague in seventeenth-century Seville

In the sixteenth century, the city of Seville served as Spain’s principal port to the New World and accrued unimaginable wealth. Nobles and merchants invested in trade and profited from this enviable monopoly, and artists, poets, playwrights, and intellectuals thrived, fostering the city’s Golden Age. However, a string of natural disasters including the great plague of 1649, as well as a decline in trade with the Americas and a mismanagement of finances by the Crown, marked a significant shift in the city’s history; Seville’s providence began to fade. Despite the onset of crisis, the city’s cultural life flourished. ❧ Looking specifically at artists associated with the Academia de Bellas Artes and their patrons, this dissertation employs a series of case studies to explore the enduring vibrancy of Seville’s cultural life amidst catastrophe in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. In light of great misfortune, artists and patrons alike deemed art a powerful tool and a critical component of solutions to social and spiritual problems. The story of art’s influence, and thus its efflorescence amidst chaos, is untold. This dissertation represents a first foray into describing a vibrant culture of academicians, patrons, craftsmen, and virtuosi against a backdrop of sometimes nearly intolerable loss and upheaval. It argues that artistic knowledge and practice were integral not only to the enduring magnificence and resilience of the city after the Golden Age, but also to its ultimate advancement.