Hispania Nostra is an association committed to denouce and defend Spanish cultural and historical heritage at risk. Among other important resources this website provides access to the so-called “lista roja del patrimonio” ([Spanish] heritage red list) including detailed information on items seriously threaten.
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The Spanish History Portal Artehistoria.com sponsorised by the Regional Government of Castilla Leon launched recently its own Youtube channel. The Artehistoriacom channel in the popular video sharing site contains a good selection of feeds on art, history and architecture.
Hispanic Virtual Library (Biblioteca Virtual Hispana) of the Spanish National Library presents a selection of documents preserved in that institution, which contain is essential for the understanding and knowledge of Spanish cultural heritage.
Dutch history lovers will certainly appreciate the quality of the on-line catalogue of the Gemeentearchief Rotterdam. The site (entirely in Dutch) provides free access to several catalogues. If you are a maritime history lover… do not miss the opportunity to browse the “Notariële Akten” for amazing surprises. Printed or digitalised copies of these documents can be ordered (1.5 €/each) directly from the website.
Geschiedenis van Zuid-Holland (History of Southern Holland) is a web portal providing a series of useful information for historians on this Dutch province. The website allows also to query the provincial and local archives (free text search) among other features.
The Spanish Ministry of Culture launched recently PARES. This service substitutes the old AER (Archivos Españoles en Red).
The Archivos de la Frontera is a content database regarding different borders, mostly geographically classified, and estructured along various knowledge axes. The page offers a good collection of Early Modern sources.
As part of a former exhibition on El Palacio del Rey Planeta: Felipe IV y El Retiro, the Museo del Prado website provides a digital reconstruction in flash of the Salon de Reinos.
The ‘Sancho el Sabio’ digital library is a project of the Basque government that includes hundreds of digitalised text mostly from the Modern and Early Contemporary period. The website allows to search easily (free text) for documents according to various variables such as language, period, etc.
Source: Ian Sample, science correspondent
Thursday November 30, 2006
The Guardian
A 2,000-year-old mechanical computer salvaged from a Roman shipwreck has astounded scientists who have finally unravelled the secrets of how the sophisticated device works.
The machine was lost among cargo in 65BC when the ship carrying it sank in 42m of water off the coast of the Greek island of Antikythera. By chance, in 1900, a sponge diver called Elias Stadiatos discovered the wreck and recovered statues and other artifacts from the site.
The machine first came to light when an archaeologist working on the recovered objects noticed that a lump of rock had a gear wheel embedded in it. Closer inspection of material brought up from the stricken ship subsequently revealed 80 pieces of gear wheels, dials, clock-like hands and a wooden and bronze casing bearing ancient Greek inscriptions.
Since its discovery, scientists have been trying to reconstruct the device, which is now known to be an astronomical calendar capable of tracking with remarkable precision the position of the sun, several heavenly bodies and the phases of the moon. Experts believe it to be the earliest-known device to use gear wheels and by far the most sophisticated object to be found from the ancient and medieval periods.
Source: EFE
PARÍS.- Unas 400 piezas de armaduras españolas de finales del siglo XVI han sido descubiertas en el norte de Francia son “de largo el mayor hallazgo” en excavaciones en ese país de herramientas de protección individual de la época, ha señalado el arqueólogo Arnaud Tixador.
Cascos, petos, espaldares y cajitas con pólvora para cargar las armas aparecieron la pasada semana en la localidad de Valenciennes, en unas excavaciones previas en un terreno sobre el que se iba a construir un edificio.
Las piezas, que permitían proteger a unos 200 hombres, estaban escondidas en una fosa cuadrada de un metro de profundidad.
En el siglo XVI, Valenciennes y el valle del Escaut fueron ocupados por las tropas españolas, pues el rey Felipe II (1527-1598) pretendía expandir el catolicismo en un territorio con una importante población protestante.
“Hay dos hipótesis: o bien cayeron en manos de protestantes rebeldes contra los militares españoles y las escondían para usarlas más adelante, bien pertenecían a un artesano que guardaba su mercancía antes de hacerla fundir”, ha explicado Tixador.
Junto a las partes de armaduras fueron hallados unos 150 arcabuces de principios del siglo XVII.
“Ahora se trata de sumergirse en los archivos y consultar la documentación para tratar de despejar las incógnitas”, ha apuntado el arqueólogo.
Los expertos continuarán las excavaciones en las proximidades, pues sospechan que pueden encontrar nuevas piezas
The Fundación Carlos de Amberes (www.fcamberes.org) has just published a monography entitled Banca, Crédito y Capital. La Monarquía Hispánica y los antiguos Países Bajos (1505-1709), Madrid 2006. The edition of this book has been coordinated by Carmen Sanz Ayan (Real Academia de la Historia & Universidad Complutense Madrid) and Bernardo García (Fundación Carlos de Amberes & Universidad Complutense Madrid). The book is in fact a collection of articles resulting from the VI Seminario Internacional de Historia, organised by the Fundación Carlos de Amberes on 12-15 December 2005.
My contribution
Iñaki López Martín: “Los ‘unos’ y los ‘otros’: comercio, guerra e identidad. Flamencos y holandeses en la Monarquía Hispánica (ca. 1560-1609)”, Banca, Crédito y Capital. La Monarquía Hispánica y los antiguos Países Bajos (1505-1709), Madrid, 2006, pp. 425-457.
Maritime Archeologie (Maritime Archaeology in Dutch) is a web project carried out by the Vlaams Instituut voor het Onroerend Erfgoed covering several maritime archaeology aspects in Belgium from shipwrecks and structures to and artifacts during the Medieval and Modern Period.
This site requires registration and it is mostly in Dutch.
Belgian History is a links portal in the first place. All the added links have two things in common: they cover a historical phenomenon within the limits of the current Kingdom of Belgium. Secondly, It adds news about historical events, happenings, and festivities. Finally, it deals and promotes local Belgian history.
Belgianhistory.be is written in English, in order to give as many people as possible access to this information.
Artesanos is a web page about the organisation of guilds and craftmen in Madrid during the Early Modern period. The project provides a good overview about Castilian guilds and presents a selection of original transcribed sources and documents. The author, Juan Carlos Zofio (see also Equipo 4704), is an specialist in Early Modern Spanish history.
Mundos Modernos is a growing portal on Early Modern Spanish history. It provides news on Early Modern publications and events. Besides it hosts also an on-line forum and the review Tiempos Modernos
The Centro Virtual Cervantes should be the the flagship for the promotion of Spanish Culture and History in the world. It is up to you to judge if the on’line resources of that centre fulfil your expectations.
The Society for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies (SSPHS) was founded in 1969 to promote research in all aspects and epochs of Iberian history and related disciplines. SSPHS conducts annual meetings, provides a forum for scholars of Iberian Affairs, awards prizes for books, articles and dissertations, and publishes its Bulletin triannually. As an affiliated society of the American Historical Association, SSPHS also sponsors sessions at the AHA’s yearly meeting.
After several years in Kansas the SSPHS moved to a new server and website address. Please change your bookmarks!
The Biblioteca Jurídica Virtual of the Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas (UNAM, Mexico) offers a good collection of legal text, books and sources regarding Spain and Latin America. Among others, it is possible to find an electronic copy of the book by Cruz Barney, Óscar, El riesgo en el comercio hispano-indiano: préstamos y seguros marítimos durante los siglos XVI a XIX, 1998, México, Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas(Serie C: estudios históricos, núm. 78), ISBN 968-36-7231-0
‘Ricardo Wall, the forgotten minister’ is a web project by Diego Téllez Alarcia and the University of La Rioja. The site provides a great overview of Wall’s biography, as well as a good collection of transcribed sources and documents coming from Spanish archives.
The “Centro de Estudios de Castilla la Mancha” hosts a good collection of on-line primary and secondary sources. Among others users will find direct access to the “Relaciones Topográficas” requested by Philip II for the provinces of Ciudad Real, Guadalajara, and Toledo.
Maritime Art Greenwich is a learning resource combining subject expertise and the National Maritime Museum’s oil painting collection. The website offers a searchable database of selected paintings plus in-depth content on some of the major themes of maritime art.
China in Spain (1555-1900) This project tries to locate, transcribe, digitize and publish Spanish resources on China from the 16th to the 19th century.
During the first phase of the project, which is supported by a grant from the Ministry of Education and Culture and will take three years, the following resources will be investigated:
a) Documents of the 16th and 17th centuries, with special emphasis on missionary’s reports from their travels to China, and on documents related to the rites controversy.
b) Documents referring to the relations between China and the Philippines in the 16th and 17th centuries, with special emphasis on the relations of the governors of the Philippines with China and the treatment of Chinese emigrants in the Philippines.
c) Spanish documents of the 19th century referring to the foreign penetration of China and the resulting social convulsions.
The Fundación Lázaro Galdiano hosts temporary exhibitions and a good library. The collection of items and art work of its museum has been included in an on-line searchable catalogue.
The Mendoza, poderosos señores page covers various aspects of the noble Castilian house: Infantado, Pastrana, Mondéjar.
Sebastián de Covarrubias Orozco: Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española (1611). First and Second part now available as part of the “Clásicos de la Biblioteca Nacional” project. Sebastián de Covarrubias y Horozco (1539-1613) was Capellán of Phillip II, canónigo of Cuenca´s cathedral, and consultor of the Santo Oficio. But he is basically known as the author of the Tesoro. In fact, the first Spanish dictionary.
It is midnight (00:11 if we want to be sharp) and I have just noticed googling that the University of Nice has published my latest article with a certain degree of nocturnidad y alevosía… No one has even told me… I have just discovered it like that (!).
Here is the reference:
Ignacio López Martín, “Entre la guerra económica y la persuasión diplomática : el comercio mediterráneo como moneda de cambio en el conflicto hispano-neerlandés (1574-1609)“, Cahiers de la Méditerranée, vol. 71 Crises, conflits et guerres en Méditerranée (Tome 2).
The title can be translated as: “Between economic war and diplomatic persuasion: the Mediterranean trade as bargaining chip in the Hipano-Dutch conflict (1574-1609)”.
Unfortunately, the abstract in English available in the journal’s website is not mine. I better prepare a good translation for them before it is too late for the printed version…!
Likewise, for some strange reason every single tables in the electronic version of the paper show bizarre font types, lack of accents and other formatting problems that make them totally unreadable. Someone should fix that before it goes printed!!!
The exhibition “Ibn Khaldun. The Mediterranean in the 14th century: the Rise and Fall of Empires”, to be held at Seville’s Real Alcázar Palace, aims to give visitors the chance to discover a period in history as decisive as the 14th century. It analyses the role of Seville and Spain at this time, looking at the events of the period, through the historical analysis in the work of Ibn Khaldun.
The 17th centurynet.net is Gateway to the Renaissance & 17th Century on the Net.
The content has not been updated recently, but there are many things hidden in there.
Ius Lusitaniae:This web page is the outcome of a research project funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (MCTES) and by POCTI (POCTI/HAR/38328/2001), with the participation of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)
Through the web page Ius Lusitaniae it is possible to access to a vast array of sources for the Portuguese Legal History, with a special focus on the early-modern period. It includes 30.000 digitised pages and more than 17.000 items (cartas régias, leis, alvarás, decretos, etc.). Not only does Ius Lusitaniae provide a general outlook of this material, it also makes possible an accurate and quick search for more specific issues.The page is available in Portuguese and English.
The page is available in Portuguese and English.
The Amsterdams Centrum voor de Studie van de Gouden Eeuw (Amsterdam Centre for the Study of the Golden Age) hosted at the University of Amsterdam gathers a good collection of publications, articles and resources with particular interest to the Early Modern Period.
Unfortunately the information of this site is available in Dutch only.
Castillos de España claims to be the largest repository of information regarding the nearly 6.000 castles left, although in very different conservation states, in Spain. The site contains currently data on 3.400 castles, fortresses and garrisons, together with more than 16.000 pictures.
The site is permanently updated and it has a mirror in English [here]
Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage is a good comprehensive site on the historical heritage of that part of nowadays Canada. I include this site in EMS because it provides a good overview on the Basque whaling activities, mostly in Red Bay, between 1530 and 1600.
The Web Gallery of Art is a virtual museum and searchable database of European painting and sculpture of the Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque periods (1100-1850), currently containing over 15.400 reproductions.
“Relaciones de sucesos” defines a particular set of historical documents that provide a detailed account of events taking place during the Early Modern period. The main objective of these documents was to inform as well as to entretain a certain audience. They usually deal with aspects such as military and political narrations, religious or extraordinary events, etc.
The proyect lead by the University of A Coruña includes access to an on-line catalogue of this type of documents
IRARGI, Centro de Patrimonio Documental de Euskadi (Center of Basque documental heritage), has been offering already for nearly one decade a good on-line database that grant access to historical documents kept in various archives in the Basque Country and elsewhere.
The webpage includes BADATOR, an excellent on-line database with nearly 500.000 historical documents and references.
Unfortunately, the pages and search engines are only available in Basque and Spanish.
El Escorial and the Temple of Solomon by Juan Rafael de la Cuadra Blanco, Ph. Dr. Architect analyses the simbology and projective genesis in architecture of El Escorial, and its relation with the myth of the Temple of Solomon.
The layout and readability of the site might be improved, but there are many interesting aspects hidden on it.
On 25 April 1607 during the Eighty Years’ War, a Dutch fleet surprised and engaged a Spanish fleet anchored at the Bay of Gibraltar.
Read Motley’s History of The Netherlands version on that event from the Gutenberg Project.
Eurodocs, one of the first (if not “the” first) collections of on-line historical documents available in the internet goes Wiki.
Needless to say, the original page of Eurodocs has been a real must for anybody interested in Early Modern history all over these years.
The creator of Eurodocs is Richard Hacken, European Studies Bibliographer,at the Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, USA. Richard is one of those guys who understood more than decade ago the importance of having a good on-line documents repository in the web. Congrats Richard!
Straatvaart users might consider visiting the following sections of Eurodocs:
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The original texts (in Latin) of the various treaties constituting the so-called Peace of Westphalia are hard to find. Neverhtless there are several English translations available. See for exmple the article on the Peace of Westphalia in Wikipedia.
Researchers, scholars or anybody interested can find a series of full on-line texts regarding the content of the Treaties of Utrecht that put an end to the War of Spanish Succession (1701-13) in the following sites.
The Treaties of Utrecht (1713): presents electronic version of some of the treaties in their original language.
A Concise History of The Netherlands is an initiative of The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs and contains a brief account of the history of the Netherlands. Users can search for information under fifty different dates and seven separate themes. The dates have been carefully chosen to cover key periods in Dutch history. Brief details are given of each of them and various links can be used to obtain further information about the period in question.
The site is well presented and the contents are well organised. Certainly nothing special for the specialists, but an excellent idea. The site is available in Dutch, English, French, German and Spanish
Teatro Español del Siglo de Oro claims to be a fully searchable database collection on Spanish Golden Age Theater. According to the general information included in the site, the database contains over 800 plays by Lope de Vega, Calderón de la Barca, Agustín de Moreto, etc.
The site, however, does not contain any clear instructions on how to get access to that potentially useful database for early modern historians. The webmaster of this project has been contacted and straatvaart is waiting for an answer.
The LIBRO project announces:
“Through the generosity of Rod Hay, a PDF version of Julius Klein’s THE MESTA: A Study in Spanish Economic History, 1273-1836 (Print Edition: Harvard University Press, 1920) has been added to the LIBRO collection.
The URL of LIBRO is: http://libro.uca.edu
The URL of this title is: http://libro.uca.edu/mesta/TheMesta.pdf
Regards,
Jim Brodman, Director
The LIBRO Project”
The LIBRO project is long-lasting research project as well as an excellent tool that grants free access to out-of-print books on Iberian History. Thanks!
La Monarquía Hispánica is a page hosted in the Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes that gives a general overview on the Spanish Habsburg period.
Historia Moderna puts on-line texts by J.A. Escudero on the Spanish Inquisition, M. Lucena Salmoral on the Spanish American Fleet, and O. Cruz Barney on the risks of the Spanish navigation in the Atlantic
A complete list of resources on Tudor History. Some of them can be useful for Early Modern specialist from Spain and The Netherlands.
Kingship in the Early Modern World is a complete on-line seminar on the concept of kingship in Early Modern Europe by Prof. Mia Rodriguez-Salgado (London School of Economics) and Joan-Pau Rubies (London School of Economics).
Learning Objectives
An interesting e-learning resource by Fathom. For the rest of seminars and on-line lessons go to the Fathom website
Golden Age Spanish Sonnets (Sonetos del Siglo de Oro español) is a collection of good verse translation of Spanish sonnets to English-speaking readers.
Naturally, the skipper’s advice remains always to read always (try at least!) the Spanish original source. You will find some in the Biblioteca Virtual Cervantes
Staats-Spaanse Linies [literally States-Spanish lines] is an interesting crossborder cultural innitiative developed by the Province of Zealand (The Netherlands) and West-Flanders (Belgium) in order to stress the important historical heritage of what once was the changing border between the Republic of the United Provinces and the territories under Spanish control in the so-called Southern-Netherlands (today’s Belgium).
The site proposes and invites visitors to re-discover the remains of military constructions used during the Hispano-Dutch conflict (1568-1648).
Unfortunately for non-Dutch speaking straatvaarders, the site is only in Dutch.
These letters from Philip II, King of Spain, mainly to Don Diego de Orellana de Chaves, Royal Governor of Spain’s northern coast, date from the time of naval war against England and France, 1592 - 1597. The collection itself is in the possession of the Special Collections Department of the Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, USA. The letters have not been previously published. They may not be reproduced without the express written consent of Brigham Young University
This hypermedia project was begun in the spring of 1996 by Jessica-Julia Vitz and is based on an undergraduate honors thesis written by Joseph J. Gwara, Jr., (School of Languages and Linguistics, Georgetown University) in 1982-83. The original intentions of Gwara’s project were to provide a descriptive survey of a collection of Catalonian manuscripts discovered in the early 1980s in the Georgetown University Library; Gwara then expanded the project to include manuscripts belonging to the Sala family collection found in other libraries.This hypermedia edition presents Joseph Gwara’s introduction to the Sala family archives, the descriptions of the 289 Catalonian charters and images of some of the manuscipts
The Cervantes Project, housed at Texas A&M University (TAMU), is a joint collaboration of the following organizations:
- TAMU Department of Modern and Classical Languages
- Universidad de Castilla La Mancha.
- The Spanish National Library
- Centro de Estudios Cervantinos (Alcalá de Henares)
- Center for the Study of Digital Libraries (CSDL) (part of the TAMU Engineering Program)
- Dr. Fred Jehle of Indiana-Purdue University
The Project offers a good collection of on-line resources and complete works by Miguel de Cervantes.
Spanish Poetry is a collection of freely available poems in Spanish from the Middle Ages to the XXIst century
The site gathers a series of materials and data regarding the Peace of Westphalia. Mostly in German
Literatura de Múdejares y Moriscos. Access to electronic articles and works on the literary production of those minorities between the XIVth and the XVIIth century.
Homenajes a Hispanistas. Digital publication of first-class research made by hispanists.
Biblioteca de Catalunya. Digitalisation of nearly 1.000 documents preserved in this library.
Real Academia Española. Fac-simil reproduction of some works preserved at the Royal Spanish Academy.
Manuscritos de Ámerica en las Colecciones Reales. A collection of manuscripts regarding the American continent preserved at the Spanish Royal Library and the Library of the Royal Monastery of El Escorial.
Clásicos en la Biblioteca Nacional. Digital access to digitalised versions of Spanish literature works.
On-line Spanish archives. Access to a large collection of Spanish historical archives (Archivo General de Indias, Archivo de Simancas, Archivo de la Chancilleria de Valladolid, Archivo Histórico Nacional, etc.).
The Segovia Mint has a fascinating history. It was built in 1583 by Juan de Herrera, Spain’s most famous architect of all time, and equipped with the most modern German waterwheel-driven minting technology. Today, the site is considered to be the oldest industrial building still standing in Spain and one of the oldest remaining in the world
Impressive site on Charles V at the Biblioteca Virtual “Miguel de Cervantes” carried out professionally by a selected group of historians. A “must” in your bookmarks. The latest is maintained by Ana M. Carabias Torres
1492: An Ongoing Voyage. An Exhibit of the Library of Congress
Christopher Columbus’s letter announcing the success of his voyage to the “islands of the India sea” is one of the most remarkable documents ever published. It is a key document in the social and intellectual histories of both Europe and the Americas. The Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education, University of Southern Maine, is pleased to make this significant historical document.
Columbus Monuments Pages. This website shows the monuments erected all over the world with a relation to Christopher Columbus, his companions and their early voyages to America.
The Avalon Project (Yale Law School) will mount digital documents relevant to the fields of Law, History, Economics, Politics, Diplomacy and Government. We do not intend to mount only static text but rather to add value to the text by linking to supporting documents expressly referred to in the body of the text.
The Library of Iberian Resources Online (LIBRO) is a joint project of the American Academy of Research Historians of Medieval Spain and the University of Central Arkansas. Its task is to make available to users the best scholarship about the peoples and nations of the Iberian peninsula. Consequently, the book list is principally drawn from recent, but out-of-print university press monographs
Clío Project.The aim of this project is twofold. On the one hand the site provides general information and on-line services Such as bibliography, texts of historical interest, etc. to undergraduates students. On the other hand, the server is an excellent research tool for scholars and professors. There are four main sections: students (undergraduates); teachers (undergraduates); university (teaching materials); and research.
The Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes is a joint project between the University of Alicante and the BSCH Banco de Santander Central Hispano. A first-class virtual library and portal on Spanish history and culture hosting, among others, an impressive site on Emperor Carlos V carried out professionally by a selected group of historians. A “must” in your bookmarks.
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