Genealogy and the Ideology of Portraiture in Long Sixteenth Century

This research will focus on the motif of genealogy in sixteenth-century Renaissance art, specifically with regard to prints and illuminations made for the Habsburg Empire, in relation to prevailing contemporary philosophies on portraiture and political power. At the start of the sixteenth century, several monumental genealogies were designed for the Habsburgs, attesting to a growing interest in the theme by patrons and artists. Lineage and self-representation were especially significant for this empire as its territories greatly expanded, reaching as far away as the Americas and Philippines. By the time of Charles V’s birth, imagery referencing the divine and sanguine lineage of the Habsburg Empire surrounded him and continued to appear in art and celebrations throughout his youth and early reign. This suggests that concepts related to genealogy had already grown strongly intertwined with the notions of magnificence and self-fashioning that drove Renaissance court culture, especially in the Burgundian territories that Charles inherited. As portraiture concurrently increased in popularity, ideas surrounding the two genres of art also became interwoven. Representation of one’s grand lineage was adapted into carefully programmed displays of painted portraits. Yet regardless of the widespread presence of the genealogy motif in Renaissance art and scholarly recognition of its influence on portraits and display, so far, many genealogies have been used only as supportive material for research into other topics. That means that some of these pieces are not often fully evaluated and compared in their own right for artistic qualities like iconography, style or design, but rather taken at face-value simply as “family trees”. This study will thus examine and compare some sixteenth-century Habsburg genealogies that have received less attention than they deserve in order to shed new light on their role as ideological tools for an empire.