Description: The first major study of the powerful Borromeo family of Milan in the seventeenth century, uncovering their growing entanglement with the Spanish monarchy, and the ways in which the Borromeo grappled with the ethical implications of this controversial relationship, repeatedly reinventing themselves to preserve their social privilege.
Review Quotes: "Weber's clearly and elegantly written book is an investigation that reconstructs the strategies by which the nobility of the ancien régime managed to perpetuate their power in the years of the valimiento and the rise of the great monarchies, concealing private interests with a language of "service" and the "common good" that clashed with a reality in which patronage networks and terrible social inequality continued to dominate." -- Vincenzo Lavenia, Journal of Jesuit Studies
"Weber's book provides a highly informative insight into Spanish rule in Northern Italy and is also an important contribution to the history of the nobility." -- Martin Biersack, Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Geschichte