Wars of Knowledge: Iberian Imperial Hegemony and the Assembling of Libraries

Abstract

This forum emphasizes the role of humanists, spies, and cultural brokers in the formation of Early Modern Iberian libraries and archives, as well as in the contentious search for information. The royal libraries imagined by the agents of Charles V or Philip II were part of cultural projects often at war with other contemporary enterprises such as that of France and Francis I. They are therefore associated with a deep sense of competition, often inherited from an inquiry of the best methods and practices inherited by classical antiquity. Diplomats and noble-men were frequently involved in obtaining the rarest materials that could mirror and enhance the mightiness of their sovereigns in the European contest for power, while also carrying their own agendas that eventually could help to dismantle political identities and power structures, or simply to obtain the mobility and visibility they desired.