Representing the King's Splendour: Communication and Reception of Symbolic Forms of Power in Viceregal Naples

Description: This book deals with the communication of power of the viceregal court of Spanish Naples in the seventeenth-century, showing how various forms of media affect politics, culture, and society

Brief description: Gabriel Guarino is Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Ulster

Review Quotes:

The book has many overall merits: it examines topics and materials that have received limited attention by historians, and effectively contextualizes them within broader trends and issues of early modern political culture...(Guarino) persuasively analyzes the difficulties inherent in the viceroy's status...The book will be of great interest to scholars of early modern political culture and ritual, and of early modern Europe in general.
Tommaso Astarita, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, Volume 17, Issue 2, 2012

Guarino's goals are achieved, in placing the visual court culture of Viceregal Naples in context of events and cultural shifts of the period, and in particular, by looking at the mostly positive reception of Spanish culture by the people of Naples . . . One of the chief strengths of this book is its clarity. Guarino is adept at setting up each chapter, and linking from section to section. . . "Representing the King's Splendour" is a useful and deeply thought through study, making use of an impressive variety of printed sources.
Erebea, 2 (2012) [issn: 0214-0691] pp. 421-424.