Embajadores culturales

Transferencias y lealtades de
la diplomacia española
de la Edad Moderna
Diana Carrió-Invernizzi (Dir.)
ARTE Y HUMANIDADES
EMBAJADORES CULTURALES
TRANSFERENCIAS Y LEALTADES
DE LA DIPLOMACIA ESPAÑOLA
DE LA EDAD MODERNA

❚ Diana Carrió-Invernizzi (dir.)

UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE EDUCACIÓN A DISTANCIA

ARTE Y HUMANIDADES (0101050CT01A01)
EMBAJADORES CULTURALES. TRANSFERENCIAS Y LEALTADES
DE LA DIPLOMACIA ESPAÑOLA DE LA EDAD MODERNA

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 ÍNDICE

Prólogo: Alain Hugon ................................................................................................................. 9

Introducción: Diana Carrió-Invernizzi ................................................................................. 17

1. PLURALIDAD DE ACTORES EN LA EXPANSIÓN

NEGOCIADA DE UN IMPERIO GLOBAL ...................................................... 35
Los actores de la diplomacia hispano-magrebí a comienzos de
la Edad Moderna (1492-1516). José Miguel Escribano Páez ................................... 37
El “Rey Prudente” ante el “Hijo del Cielo”: una embajada agustina
de Felipe II al emperador de la China (1575-1582). Diego Sola ......................... 59
Dos visiones de la diplomacia hispano-persa en el siglo XVII: Uruch Beg
y Don García de Silva y Figueroa. Dolores Perpiñán Silla .................................... 81
Gifts across the Mediterranean sea. The 1784 Spanish Gift-embassy to
Constantinople and its cross-cultural diplomatic practice. Pablo Hernández Sau . 107

2. EMBAJADORES OFICIALES Y SUS ESTRATEGIAS

CULTURALES EN LAS CORTES EUROPEAS .............................................. 137
From Ambassador to Cardinal? Francisco de Vargas at the papal
court (1559-63). Miles Pattenden. ..................................................................................... 139
Embodying the portrait of the perfect ambassador: The first Count
of Gondomar and the role of print culture and cultural literacy
in Anglo-Spanish relations during the Jacobean period. Ernesto Oyarbide ... 157
The diplomacy of letters of the Count of La Roca in Venice (1632-1642).
Conchi Gutiérrez ....................................................................................................................... 187

EMBAJADORES CULTURALES. TRANSFERENCIAS Y LEALTADES DE LA DIPLOMACIA ESPAÑOLA DE LA EDAD MODERNA ❙

8 ÍNDICE

Manuel de Lira, Spanish Ambassador to The Hague (1671–1678).

The home of the ambassador and his role as agent of artists
and art collectors. Diana Carrió-Invernizzi ................................................................... 205
La embajada del VI conde de Fernán Núñez en Lisboa (1778-1787):
un ejemplo de promoción social a través de la diplomacia.
José Antonio Vigara Zafra ...................................................................................................... 237

3. AGENTES INFORMALES Y SU MEDIACIÓN CULTURAL

EN ROMA Y NÁPOLES ................................................................................................ 261

La embajada extraordinaria del Condestable de Navarra ante Urbano VIII

en 1627 y Guido Reni. David García Cueto ................................................................. 263
Leonor María de Guzmán (1590-1654), VI condesa de Monterrey,
de “Embaxatriz” en Roma a “virreina” de Nápoles. Ángel Rivas Albaladejo 289
El regalo de cantatas para el marqués de Aytona y su valor
diplomático en la corte de Nápoles (1688-1690). Chiara Pelliccia ..................... 321

4. EMBAJADORES EN LOS MÁRGENES DEL PODER EN MADRID

Y SUS LEALTADES COMPARTIDAS .................................................................. 345

Gestores de la Real Justicia: recursos del arte de litigar a distancia

en la Nueva España del siglo XVII. Óscar Mazín ....................................................... 347
“Cavaliero di belle lettere e di gentilissimi costumi ornato”. El perfil
cultural de los embajadores napolitanos en Madrid (siglos XVI y XVII).
Ida Mauro .................................................................................................................................. 367
¿Juana o Johanna?: cultura mixta, doble identidad y bilingüismo
de las embajadoras imperiales en la corte de Madrid (1663-1676).
Laura Oliván Santaliestra ...................................................................................................... 397

❙ EMBAJADORES CULTURALES. TRANSFERENCIAS Y LEALTADES DE LA DIPLOMACIA ESPAÑOLA DE LA EDAD MODERNA

 Diana Carrió-Invernizzi

MANUEL DE LIRA, SPANISH AMBASSADOR TO

THE HAGUE (1671–1678). THE HOME OF
THE AMBASSADOR AND HIS ROLE AS AGENT
OF ARTISTS AND ART COLLECTORS*
Manuel de Lira, embajador español
en La Haya (1671-1678). El palacio de
la embajada y su papel como
agente de artistas y de coleccionistas

02 parte 2.4*.indd 205 15/4/16 13:45

 resumen
La embajada española en La Haya se creó tras la firma de la Paz de Münster con las
Provincias Unidads (1648) que acabó con la Guerra de los Treinta Años. Nunca se envió allí
a miembros de la alta nobleza española, sino a personas seleccionadas con esmero, con una
especial vocación política, que además se convirtieron en privilegiados agentes culturales en
Europa. Uno de ellos, Manuel de Lira, fue un ejemplo del proceso de ennoblecimiento de in-
telectuales y de la transformación de los servidores del rey en la segunda mitad del siglo XVII.
Su aceptación del declive de la monarquía, y su propia ascendencia social le permitieron in-
miscuirse en los asuntos políticos con sutileza y aprovechar las prácticas informales del poder,
como el mecenazgo o el coleccionismo, participando también en las ceremonias y el intercam-
bio de regalos. Logró adquirir la primera residencia permanente para la embajada española
en La Haya, que se encargó de decorar con esmero, junto con la capilla. Además se convirtió
en agente del X Almirante de Castilla, Juan Gaspar Enríquez de Cabrera, un extraordinario
coleccionista español, al que Lira proporcionaba noticias sobre las oportunidades de ampliar
su colección artística desde Holanda.

perfil biográfico
Diana Carrió-Invernizzi es profesora titular del Departamento de Historia del Arte de la
Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED). Después de obtener su doctorado
europeo por la Universitat de Barcelona (2006), fue investigadora postdoctoral en la Univer-
sidad de Cambridge (2008) y en el Instituto Universitario Europeo de Florencia (2009). Es la
autora de El gobierno de las imágenes. Ceremonial y mecenazgo en la Italia espa-
ñola de la segunda mitad del siglo XVII, (Madrid/Frankfurt, Iberoamericana, 2008), y
coeditora, con Joan Lluís Palos, de La Historia imaginada. Construcciones visuales del
pasado en la época moderna (Madrid, Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica, 2008). En-
tre sus artículos se encuentran: “Gift and Diplomacy in Seventeenth Century Spanish
Italy” (The Historical Journal, vol. 51, issue 4, 2008, pp. 881-899); “A New Diplomatic
History and the Networks of Spanish Baroque Diplomacy”, The International His-
tory Review, 36 (4), 2014, pp. 603-618.

02 parte 2.4*.indd 206 15/4/16 13:45

 abstract
The embassy at The Hague was created following the signing of the Peace of Münster with
the Dutch Republic (1648), which had put an end to the Thirty Years’ War. The upper nobility
were never sent there, but rather individuals, selected with immense care, with a distinct view of
politics, who became privileged agents of cultural transfer within Europe. One of them, Manuel
de Lira was an example of the process of ennoblement of intellectuals, and of the transformation
experienced by royal servants in the second half of the seventeenth century. His facility with pen
and paper, united him with a European nobility increasingly concerned with writing and its
associated cultural practices. His acceptance of the monarchy’s decline, and his own social and
cultural ascendancy, allowed him to more accurately grasp political matters and informal practices
of power, such as patronage, art collecting, participation in ceremonies and gift exchange. He
managed the purchase of the Crown’s first physical residence of the embassy in The Hague. The
care Lira lavished upon the embassy’s house and chapel was supreme. He decorated the palace
with portraits of the King of Spain, but also commissioned paintings for the chapel. In addition,
he was named as agent of the 10th Admiral of Castile, Juan Gaspar Enríquez de Cabrera, a
prominent art collector in Spain. Lira was to provide the admiral with detailed information
concerning any opportunity to expand his collection that might be found in Holland.

biographical note
Diana Carrió-Invernizzi is a tenured professor in the Department of Art History at the
Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED). She is PhD from the Universitat
de Barcelona (2006). She was postdoctoral fellow at the University of Cambridge (2008) and
the European University Institute in Florence (2009). She is the author of El gobierno de
las imágenes. Ceremonial y mecenazgo en la Italia española de la segunda mitad del
siglo XVII, (Madrid/Frankfurt, Iberoamericana, 2008), and coeditor with Joan Lluís Palos
of Historia imaginada. Construcciones visuales del pasado en la época moderna
(Madrid, Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica, 2008). Among her articles are: “Gift and
Diplomacy in Seventeenth Century Spanish Italy” (The Historical Journal, vol. 51,
issue 4, 2008, pp. 881-899); “A New Diplomatic History and the Networks of Spanish
Baroque Diplomacy”, The International History Review, 36 (4), 2014, pp. 603-618.

*
  This article has been possible thanks to support from the Research Project Poder y representaciones en la
edad moderna. Redes diplomáticas y encuentros culturales en la monarquía hispánica 1500-1700, UNED, HAR2012-
39516-C02-02, of Spain’s Ministerio de Economía. A preliminary version of the text was presented at the
conference Splendid Encounters II, Diplomats and Diplomacy in Europe, 1500-1750, Downside Abbey, Stratton
on the Fosse, Bath (UK), 4-5 April 2014. The text has been translated by Davide van Vlijmen. I would like
to thank Manuel Herrero and Maurits Ebben for all their valuable comments on this essay.

02 parte 2.4*.indd 207 15/4/16 13:45

 “For one’s pleasure and convenience, the embassies are famous pastimes”1
Manuel de Lira (1675)

Manuel de Lira was a first-rate ambassador in the international politics

of Charles II of Spain, but was, first and foremost, a practical man. He was an
example of the process of ennoblement of intellectuals, and of the transformation
experienced by royal servants in the second half of the seventeenth century, among
whom numbered, for the first time, individuals from outside the uppermost nobility.
He spoke several languages and, thanks to the years he spent far from Spain,
acquired a deep knowledge of diplomatic practice and familiarity with the offices
of government. His facility with pen and paper, as has been described by Fernando
Bouza, united him with a European nobility increasingly concerned with writing
and its associated practices. In his letters to the Duke of Osuna, he bemoaned the
acknowledgement which many received at court, when “they have not spilled so
much blood as I, nor wet their sword in the enemy so many times, nor used their
quills on papers as important as Your Majesty knows have passed and still pass
through my hands”2. His acceptance of the monarchy’s decline, and his own social
and cultural ascendancy, allowed him to more accurately grasp political matters
and informal practices of power, such as patronage, art collecting, participation
in ceremonies and gift exchange. Lastly, he formed part of a body of ambassadors

1
  Archivo General de Simancas (henceforth AGS), Estado (henceforth E.), Legajo (henceforth Leg.)
8652, unnumbered pages. Letter written by Manuel de Lira to the Marquis de la Fuente, 10 October 1675:
“No se puede negar que para el gusto y la conveniencia son famosos pasatiempos las embaxadas”.
2
  Biblioteca Nacional de España (BNE), Manuscript 10447, letter written by Manuel de Lira from
Brussels, 29 May 1675: “ni han derramado tanta sangre como yo ni han mojado en la enemiga la espada
tantas vezes, ni la pluma en algodones tan importantes como Vuestra Excelencia sabe que han pasado y
pasan por mis manos”, from Fernando Bouza, “La correspondencia del hombre práctico. Los usos epis-
tolares de la nobleza española del Siglo de Oro a través de seis años de cartas del conde de Fernán Núñez
(1679-1684)”, Cuadernos de Historia moderna, Anejos, 2005 (IV), pp. 129-154; p. 133.

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 Diana Carrió-Invernizzi 209

who managed to foment —in the second half of the seventeenth century— a
cosmopolitan political culture in Europe3.

Manuel Francisco de Lira y Castillo was the son of Juan de Lira —a knight of the
Order of Santiago and member of the Consejo de Hacienda— and Felipa del Castillo
y Sigoney. He pursued a military career, and married Jerónima de la Torre4. From
1659, he lived in the Low Countries, where he had arrived accompanying his father5.
He was well versed in the “tongues indispensable to the communication of foreign
ministers”6 and, possibly for this reason, was appointed in 1667 as ambassador to
welcome Empress Margaret Theresa of Spain for her wedding to Leopold I and,
later, to the post of conductor de embajadores (the individual who officially received
and presented ambassadors) in Madrid7. He knew the Low Countries very well when
he arrived at the embassy in The Hague, in June 1671. There he would remain until
August 1678, shortly after the signing of the Treaty of Nijmegen.

Following several international mishaps, and the acknowledgement of the

Dutch Republic’s independence in the Peace of Westphalia, a new stage opened up
for the Hispanic Monarchy. The generation which emerged from these negotiations
displayed a very different disposition to the former, forging a new political order
and imposing a more realistic vision of matters of state8. In fact, with Manuel

3
  See also: Manuel Herrero, “Republican Diplomacy and the power balance in Europe” in Antonella
Alimento (ed.), War, Trade and Neutrality. Europe and the Mediterranean in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,
Milan: Franco Angeli, 2011, pp. 23-40: “Lira provides an eloquent example of the part played by diplomacy
in creating a distinct cosmopolitan political culture in Europe, inspired by republican models but sustained
by a rigid protocol and a rigorous hierarchy between states which gave monarchs an axial role in the exercise
of power”, p. 33. Manuel Herrero is carrying out a detailed study of the figure of Manuel de Lira.
4
  Jerónima de la Torre died in Madrid on 3 February 1708 and was buried in the vault of the Casa del
Espíritu Santo de Clérigos Menores, according to José Antonio Álvarez y Baena, Hijos de Madrid, ilustres en
Santidad, dignidades, armas, ciencias y artes. Diccionario histórico, vol. IV, 1789, pp. 7-8.
5
  AGS, E. Leg. 3980, Letter written by Lira from Cologne, 2 October 1673: “The fourteen years I
have spent in the Low Countries, during three different reigns, might have equipped me to be of use in the
Council of Flanders, in which institution nationality is not a requirement, as has been seen with the Baron
of Vatevila and Don Estaban de Gamarra who were born in Italy.”
6
  AGS, E. Leg. 3980, Letter written by Lira from Cologne, 2 October 1673: “conocedor de las lenguas
indispensables en la comunicación de los ministros extranjeros”.
7
  This was the name given to the introductor de embajadores until the reign of Charles III. A role created
by Philip IV in 1626, the conductor was the individual in charge of receiving and accompanying ambassadors
who had recently arrived at court.
8
 María Victoria López Cordón, “Diplomacia, propaganda e historia: la publicística española en
torno a 1648” in Duchhardt and Strosetzki, eds., La cultura y la política de España en la primera mitad del

Embajadores oficiales y sus estrategias culturales en las cortes europeas ❙

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 210   manuel de lira, spanish ambassador to the hague (1671-1678)…

de Lira’s arrival at The Hague (as envoy extraordinary), he left behind an era of
Spanish politics in Holland characterised by the safeguard of the Catholic religion
in northern Europe, with the diplomatic world now beginning to speak of freedom
of thought. He also became the architect of an Hispanic-Dutch alliance, at the time
of a Franco-Dutch war (1672-78), something which would have been unthinkable
only years earlier, and which earned him the opposition of a cadre at court headed
by the Count of Peñaranda. Although he was critical of the work being done by
Spanish diplomats in the north of Europe9, he claimed that “the damage is in the
trunk and not in the branches”, and felt proud of having signed, in just four years,
“our treaties with Dutchmen, with the Elector of Brandenburg, the Princes of
Brunswick and the Duke of Lorena”10. There is no doubt that he was central to a
dramatic turnaround in the international Spanish politics of his day11.

In 1677, Charles II awarded him the honour of induction into the Order of
Santiago12. In 1679, he returned to Spain, the king naming him as his secretary of
state of Italy13. From 1685, he was secretary of the Despacho Universal de Estado, and
in 1690, in this capacity, accompanied Charles II to Valladolid to receive his wife,

siglo XVII (Vienna, 1996), 109-128; By the same author: “Equilibrio y alianzas. Holanda en el pensamiento
internacional español posterior a Westfalia”, Diálogos hispánicos, 16 (1995), 81-101. For some authors, like
Manuel Herrero, this process developed before, for instance with ambassadors such as Saavedra Fajardo in
1638 and 1641, or the count of Peñaranda himself.
9
  AGS, E., 8652, Letter written by Lira from The Hague, 1 June 1676: “each of us works as best we
can when we serve abroad, but the damage is in the trunk and not the branches, such that the remedy hangs
from a cause higher than that of our offices, and more efficient than that of our merits, the monarchy sinking
into circumstances such as it has never seen, and which it will not escape from even with many years to
re-establish itself ”.
10
 AGS, E., 8652, Letter written by Lira from Brussels, 11 February 1675: “nuestros tratados con
holandeses con el elector de Brandenburgo, con los príncipes de Brunswick y con el duque de Lorena”.
11
  Lira formed part of a generation with an alternative view of history, as revealed by a letter he wrote:
AGS, E., 8652, Letter written by Lira from The Hague, 6 February 1679: “Of scant use would they be to us
today, neither those of Don Ferdinand in politics nor those of the Gran Capitán in war, as if these or other
heroes had found matters in the state we do they would have left in the Annals names not illustrious but pitiful,
which is the role we now play in the history of these times”. See Manuel Herrero Sánchez and Ana Crespo
Solana (coords.), España y las 17 provincias de los Países Bajos: una revisión historiográfica (XVI-XVIII), Córdoba:
Universidad de Córdoba, Servicio de Publicaciones, 2002. And particularly the chapter written by Maurits
Ebben: “Teoría y práctica de la política exterior de Johan de Witt: el caso de España, 1653-1672), pp. 45-64.
12
  Meeting of the Consejo de las Órdenes, 4 May 1677, in José Antonio Álvarez y Baena, Hijos de Madrid,
ilustres en Santidad, dignidades, armas, ciencias y artes. Diccionario histórico, vol. IV, 1789, pp. 7-8.
13
 He was sworn in to the Consejo de Estado on the afternoon of 28 November 1679, with a great
abundance of nobility and ministers of the court.

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 Diana Carrió-Invernizzi 211

Maria Anna of Neuburg14. Lira advocated an alliance with England and the Dutch
Republic which encompassed the acceptance of foreigners in American commerce
and the granting of religious freedom in Spanish ports15. In 1691 he handed the king
his resignation, provoked by his disagreement with the government of Flanders.
The king accepted, granting him a seat on the Consejo y Cámara de las Indias. Lira
died a few days later.

❚  THE SPANISH EMBASSY TO THE HAGUE

The Hague was, in Lira’s words, “where the office of negotiations today
resides”16. It had, in fact, become the court where Europe’s most important matters
were conceived and resolved17, and a political node of the utmost importance
throughout the continent. It was no accident that the majority of international
treaties (prior to Utrecht) were signed in the Dutch Republic, namely in Nijmegen,
Rijswijk or The Hague. Its market, its financial networks and its naval resources
had made Holland one of the keys to Europe18, a place where information flowed
inwards from all angles, from the Ottoman Levant to the colonies. There, before
anywhere else, arrived the earliest indications of military movements, naval
preparations, rebellions and political conflicts19.

14
  John Lynch, Los Austrias, 1516-1700, Barcelona: Crítica, 2003, p. 736.
15
  Manuel de Lira y Castillo, “Representación dirigida a don Carlo II” in Juan Sempere y Guarinos,
Biblioteca Española Económico-Política, 4 vols. Madrid, 1801-1824, IV, pp. 1-44.
16
  AGS. E., Leg. 8349, Letter written by Lira, from The Hague, 1 December 1671.
17
  From Ferdinand Braudel, Civilization and capitalism, 15th-18th Century, III, The perspective of the world,
Berkeley: UCP, 1992, p. 203: “the threads of diplomacy were woven and unwoven at the Hague”.
18
  AGS, E., Leg. 3608, Consejo de Estado, 3 July 1655, from Manuel Herrero, “Republican Diplomacy
and the power balance in Europe” in Antonella Alimento (ed.), War, trade and neutrality. Europe and the Medi-
terranean in seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Milan: Franco Angeli, 2011, pp. 23-40, p. 33, note 35.
19
  Hans Cools, “Francesco Ferroni (1614-16-1696), Broker in Cereals, Slaves and Works of Art”, in
Your humble servant: Agents in Early Modern Europe, eds. Hans Cools, Marika Keblusek and Badeloch Noldus,
2006, pp. 39-50; Giorgio Doria, “Conoscenza del mercato e sistema informativo: il know-how dei mercan-
ti-finanzieri genovesi nei secoli XVI e XVII”, in La repubblica internazionale del denaro tra XV e XVII secolo, eds.
Aldo De Maddalena and Hermann Kellenbenz, Bologna: Il Mulino, 1986, pp. 57-122. Ana Crespo Solana,
“Dutch mercantile Networks and the trade with the Hispanis Port Cities in the Atlantic (1648-1778)”, in
Redes y negocios globales en el mundo ibérico, siglos XVI-XVIII, eds. Nikolaus Bottiher, Bernd Hausberger and
Antonio Ibarra, Frankfurt: Vervuert, El Colegio de México, 2011, pp. 107-142.

Embajadores oficiales y sus estrategias culturales en las cortes europeas ❙

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 212   manuel de lira, spanish ambassador to the hague (1671-1678)…

Since Spain had made Holland its key commercial ally, to the detriment of
Genoa, the French envoy to The Hague, Brasset, warned the Dutch Republic’s
States General of the dangers of getting too close to a Catholic monarchy which
bestowed privileges in exchange for political dependence. These fears were, to some
degree, unfounded, as few among the Dutch were overly attracted to an increasingly
debilitated royal patronage. The Dutch barely mixed with the monarchy —quite
unlike the Genoese before them— with the exception of a handful of Catholic
aristocrats, or certain businessmen such as Antonio Isaac Lopes Suasso, an agent of
Charles II, who received the title of Count of Avernas Le Gras in 167620.

The embassy at The Hague was created following the signing of the Peace of
Münster with the Dutch Republic (1648), which had put an end to the Thirty Years’
War. The upper nobility were never sent there, but rather individuals, selected
with immense care, with a distinct view of politics, such as Manuel Coloma,
who became privileged agents of cultural transfer within Europe. The Hague was
intended to form an important axis in Spain’s diplomatic network, from which
the ambassador and his secretary would control European politics, maintaining a
fluid correspondence with the other ambassadors and viceroys, and spending time
in Brussels to advise the ruler on delicate matters such as Antwerp’s rebellion of
165921. To some extent, the frenetic activity of this embassy in northern Europe
compensated for the monarchy’s loss of military might on the continent22. Its
influence would now manifest itself in on the battlefield of pen and ink (and, as we
will see, of visual artifacts as well), not the one of weapons23.

In 1649, the first ambassador, Antoine Brun, arrived at The Hague. On his
death, Vincent Richard assumed his diplomatic functions and acted as advisor to

20
 Certain businessmen in Amsterdam, such as Lopo Ramires, Manuel Belmonte, and the Lopes
Suassos cooperated with the Spanish diplomatic networks in The Hague. See Jonathan Israel, The Dutch
Republic and the Hispanic World, 1606-1661, Oxford, 1982.
21
  In 1701 the embassy’s archive was relocated to Brussels by order of the ambassador Bernando de
Quirós, in the context of the War of the Spanish Succession, explaining its current location in Brussels’
Archives Generales du Royaume.
22
  Manuel Herrero, El acercamiento hispano-neerlandés (1648-1678), Madrid: CSIC, 2000.
23
  AGS, E., 8586, Letter from Lira to Coloma, from The Hague, 14 April 1678: “if the sword had been
written with as the pen has been fought with, how different things would be, but God has not wished that
the dampness of our gunpowder —we, in our carelessness, having neglected our armaments— should be
repaired with the black liquid of our inkwells”.

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 Diana Carrió-Invernizzi 213

his successor, Esteban de Gamarra, managing to arrange the appointment of his

brother, Jacques Richard, as Spanish consul in Amsterdam: an important role, which
connected the Crown with influential commercial networks of Jewish converts, who
were well informed about Dutch mercantile activity in the wider world24.

When the ambassador, Esteban de Gamarra, heard of Manuel de Lira’s

appointment as his successor, he praised his qualities: “he is a fine fellow, and among
the languages he speaks is Flemish, with which alone he could justly demand his
wage, even were a Walloon appointed president of the treasury” 25. What Gamarra
probably did not know was that money, or rather its scarcity, would prove to be a
continual burden for Lira while, paradoxically, the then Governor of Flanders, the
Count of Monterrey, was busily squandering resources, according to the papal nuncio:
“It is a surprise to one and all that the count governor should organise a
celebration of such pomp in a public city square, while not even the children of the
kings in Spain celebrate with so lavish a spectacle. This ostentation creates a poor
impression, above all in such calamitous times, in which the nobility take a dim
view of the wasting of money on frivolities”26.

It was clear that Lira, for whom “the crucible of progress is one’s fortune”,
did not belong to the same high nobility as the Count of Monterrey. While the
latter amused himself with public appearances, Lira turned to Amsterdam’s Stock
Exchange to request money, in the “most bothersome occupation of men, which
is that of obtaining money, by negotiating in Amsterdam’s stock market, a loan of
one hundred thousand escudos concerning a tax, and little more to offer as guaran-
tee than the word, and the good names, of the Count of Monterrey and myself ”27.

24
  Manuel Herrero, “Republican Diplomacy and the power balance in Europe” in Antonella Alimento
(ed.), War, trade and neutrality. Europe and the Mediterranean in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Milan:
Franco Angeli, 2011, pp. 23-40, AGS, E., 2079, 4 July 1652.
25
  AGS, E. 8483, Fol. 177: Letter from Gamarra to the Marquis de la Fuente, from Madrid, 1 October
1670: “es muy buen mozo y entre las lenguas que habla es la flamenca con que podrá pedir su sueldo aunque
se nombre por presidente de hacienda un balón”.
26
  Archivio Segreto Vaticano (ASV), Segreteria di Stato Fiandra, Leg. 59, Fol. 181. Letter written by
the nuncio from Brussels, 11 February 1673: “Ognuno stupisce che il conte governatore faccia fare questa festa di
caroselle si pomposa e nella pubblica piazza della città per il compir degli anni di sua figlia, quando quelli del re e della
regina non si celebrano con tanta dimostrazione in Spagna pur parera male questa ostentazione massime in tempi si
calamitosi ne quali questa nobiltà non ha troppo il commodo di spendere denari in queste cose superflue”.
27
  AGS, E., 8669, Letter from Lira to the Marquis of the Balbases, 28 June 1678: “la mas engorrosa
ocupación que hay para los hombres que es la de buscar dinero negociando en la bolsa de Ámsterdam, cien

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In his letter, Manuel de Lira defined his vision of the services which he and his
family provided:
“My grandparents, parents and brothers have all died in service, in war and in
peace, both professions which I have followed for years, with many injuries and losses
in the former, and to the council’s satisfaction in the latter (...); my father moved to
Flanders with more than five thousand ducats of income inherited but not received,
and after what has been used, what remains for my benefit today is less than two
thousand; it is proper and in accordance with that merited by the service of the king
that Your Majesty honours me in light of a meeting such as this, and all that was
entrusted to my hand in Holland; the kindness of sovereigns shows their appreciation
of their subjects’ proceedings, to the credit of the negotiations derived thereof.”28

Manuel de Lira often complained of the lack of resources for public and
private use, believing that there existed embassies of greater and lesser status: “all
those young gentleman of Italy do very well at playing the rooster —given that
our grandeur is that of a capon— and at dealing in the same manner with Your
Majesty’s representatives, although we break our backs with work”29. Despite
these shortfalls, from his arrival at The Hague (as envoy extraordinary, rather
than as ambassador) he attempted to dignify the embassy30, so that it would be
afforded the same powers as an embassy ordinary, and so a cypher31 would be sent
allowing its letters to be encoded like those of any other embassy. On his arrival
in Holland, he experienced problems with the postal service and was unable to

mil escudos como prestados sobre un arbitrio y pocas más hipotecas que las de la palabra y buenas caras del
señor conde de Monterrey y la mía”.
28
  AGS, E., 3980, Letter from Lira to the queen, from Cologne, 2 October 1673: “Mis abuelos, padres
y hermanos han muerto todos sirviendo en la guerra y en la paz, ambas profesiones he seguido años ha,
con muchas heridas y pérdidas en la primera, y con bastante satisfacción del consejo en la segunda (...); mi
padre pasó a Flandes con más de cinco mil ducados de renta heredada y no adquirida y después de lo servi-
do, no llega oy a dos mil la que gozo; conveniencia es del mismo servicio del rey nuestro señor que Vuestra
majestad me honre a vista de un congreso como este y de lo que ha pasado por mi mano en Holanda pues
intrínsicamente dan estimación al proceder de los súbditos las mercedes a sus soberanos y dellas resulta el
crédito de las negociaciones”. See also note 6.
29
  AGS, E., 8652. Letter from Lira to Villagarcía, from The Hague, 14 October 1677: “hacen muy bien
todos esos señoritos de Italia en ser gallos pues nuestra grandeza es capona y en responder con cresta a los ofi-
cios de vuestra merced, no siendo los nuestros mucho ha más que oficios, aunque nos quebremos la caveza”.
30
  We shall remember that the agents from the States General in Madrid were simply envoys extraor-
dinary as well.
31
  A system of encoded writings used in the diplomatic sphere, which could be read only by those who
knew the key.

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transmit — not having a cypher32— the delicate information which it was his job to
provide, particularly to ministers in Italy, concerning France’s military movements
in Flanders, for example, or the menace which threatened Cologne. At the same
time, Belmonte, a Spanish envoy in Amsterdam, requested the same immunities
enjoyed by his Dutch counterpart in Spain33.

In the difficult context of the invasion of the Low Countries, by a France relying
on support from England, Münster and Cologne, William III agreed to negotiate
with Spain. Lira described his first negotiations with Holland as of “little substance”
but causing “such a racket” in France that the French “will use every means at their
disposal to dispel the idea in Madrid, until the day it is ratified”34.

The testimony of the then nuncio in Flanders reveals the extent to which the
political game was changing in Europe, and how matters of religion were taking a
back seat in the international arena. According to the nuncio, the Spanish ambassador
in London, Pedro Fernández de Velasco y Tovar, Marquis of Fresno, had expressed
in a letter his serious reservations about Monterrey and Lira’s negotiations with
the Dutch, doubts shared by others such as the influential Count of Peñaranda and
the Constable of Castile. The nuncio also described his meeting with the Dutch
ambassador in Brussels to the curia, who expressed his surprise at the Pope’s
inaction and at the conflict between two Catholic powers like France and Spain35.
In the same letter, the nuncio reveals that the governor, Monterrey, had contacted
the palace, warning that he had important news to relay to Madrid. Fearful that if
sent in his name this news would not reach its destination, he requested that it be
sent by common post to the nuncio in France, from where it could pass directly to
Madrid. The nuncio suspected that the mail contained news about the attack on

32
  AGS, E., 8652, Letter written by Lira from The Hague, 26 November 1671: “Estas noticias van faltas
de muchas circunstancias por el accidente que he representado a Vuestra Excelencia de hallarme sin cifra
que hasta que se remedie de España me veré imposibilitado de comunicar a Vuestra Excelencia más que los
avisos generales que se pueden fiar de la publicidad”.
33
  AGS. E., Leg. 8349, Letter written in French by Belmonte, who took over the post from his brother.
December, 1671.
34
  AGS. E., Leg. 8652, Letter from Lira to Ligne, 23 December 1671: “Y aunque esta negociación
es de tan poco fuste como suena, ha hecho en Francia tanto ruido que creo se aplican por todos medios a
desvanecerla en Madrid y así hasta que venga ratificada”.
35
  ASV, Segreteria di Stato Fiandra, 59, fol. 113-120. Letter written by the nuncio, from Brussels, 23
January 1672.

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Charleroi and made his excuses, fearing he might be discovered by the French36.
Monterrey, therefore, ended up sending his letter by sea.

Shortly after this testimony Lira, who seemed unaware of the Marquis of
Fresno’s opposition, expressed to none other than Fresno how satisfied he was with
the progress of the negotiations: “we are on a fine balcony this year to watch the
festivities”37. Lira indicated, furthermore, that Jascques Richard, “our consul in
Amsterdam” and brother of the second Spanish ambassador to The Hague, had
informed him of a ship attacked by the English, carrying certain gifts to the Princess
of Ligne “for her relatives and other ladies of Flanders”. Lira requested Fresno’s
mediation in recovering these goods, confident that “in matters of such worthy
gallantry not even Your Excellence would wish not to cooperate”38. Lira and Fresno
also exchanged information about a spy sent to Holland by the King of England,
both men doubting their ability to discover his identity: “there being so many who
could be suspected of such errands, but none who can be named with certainty”39.

Shortly after these missives, the new Spanish ambassador, the Count of Molina,
made his formal entrance into London. Lira lamented the scant resources available
to the embassies with which to exhibit a brilliance worthy of their representatives:
“I am deeply concerned regarding the effect on our nation of the disarray which
pervades everything, and the indecency and lack of ostentation with which Your
Excellence will have performed his entrance”40. In September 1672, Molina

36
  ASV, Segreteria di Stato Fiandra, 59, fol. 113-120. Letter written by the nuncio, from Brussels, 23
January 1672.
37
  Archives Generales du Royaume, Brussels, Leg. 485, Letter from Lira to the Marquis of Fresno, am-
bassador in London, from The Hague, 29 March 1672: “en buen balcón estamos este año para ver la fiesta”.
38
  Archives Generales du Royaume, Brussels, Leg. 485, Letter from Lira to the Marquis of Fresno,
ambassador in London, from The Hague, 29 March 1672: “Jascques Richard que es el cónsul nuestro en
Ámsterdam me escribe que ene una de las naos que en este suceso han tomado ingleses llamada la paz
vienen dos Pacas que me siñora la princesa de Ligne enviaba en ella con algunos regalos para sus parientas
y otras señoras de flandes como consta del conocimiento adjunto que me ha parecido poner en mano de
Vuestra Excelencia por si Vuestra Excelencia juzgase se puede hacer alguna diligencia para recobrarlas, pues
no dudo que en materia de tan digna galantería ni Vuestra Excelencia querrá dejar de cooperar”.
39
  Archives Generales du Royaume, Brussels, Leg. 485, Letter from Lira to the Marquis of Fresno, from
The Hague, 6 May 1672: “En quanto a la espía que embiare aquí ese rey no será fácil sacarla por el rastro
habiendo tantas de quien se pueden sospechar estas diligencias sin saverlas con certidumbre de ninguno”.
40
  Archives Generales du Royaume, Brussels, Leg. 511, Letter from Lira to the Count of Molina and
his secretary Francisco Ruiz, from The Hague, 7 April 1672: “me tiene con gran cuidado para el punto de la
nación, el desaseo con que estará todo y la indecencia y falta de lucimiento con que Vuestra Excelencia habrá

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informed Lira of the appointment of a servant of His Majesty, charged with taking
various presents to the negotiations in Germany in an attempt to marginalise
France, demonstrating just how widespread this practice of exchanging gifts was:
“… to take assorted jewels of great value: one to the aforementioned elector,
another in the form of a cross to the elector of Cologne, to the Duke of Neuburg a
portrait and to his son a dress sword of diamonds, and another jewel to the Duke
of Strasbourg, having found this the most effective means of persuasion and seeing
one’s desires carried out”41.

On 17 December 1672, a league was formed in opposition to Louis XIV, whose

members included (at various times) Spain, the Empire, Bavaria, Brandenburg and
the Germanic Holy Roman Empire. Meanwhile, Lira thanked Molina for his gesture
of sending him, from Spain and via France, a box for his wife Jerónima “with
trinkets from her homeland”42. Immediately afterwards, Lira began preparations
for his journey to Cologne, sending one of his emissaries to find him a house in
the city43. From Cologne, the negotiations relocated to Brussels, and finally to The
Hague, where, in August of that same year, an alliance was agreed with the States
General of the Dutch Republic, by virtue of which Spain would protect Holland
from French and English attacks: “All my efforts are dedicated to the Dutch, that
we might avoid catastrophe, their dejection being incredible and worsened by the
influence of the ambassadors who came before me”44.

ejecutado su entrada”. And in a later letter, dated 21 October, Lira states: “most hypocritically does Your
Excellence convey your public entrance with such modesty, when here we have not ignored its great success”.
41
  Archives Generales du Royaume, Brussels, Leg. 511, Letter from the Count of Molina to Lira, from
Paris, 16 September 1672: “Estar nombrado un domestico de Su Majestad para llevar diferentes joyas de
gran precio una al dicho elector y al de Colonia, otra de echura de cruz al duque de Neoburg un retrato y a
su hijo un espadín de diamantes y otra joya al de Strasburg haviendo hallado que este es el más eficaz modo
de persuadir y conseguir lo que desea que ejecuten”.
42
  Archives Generales du Royaume, Brussels, Leg. 511, Letter from Lira to the Count of Molina, 23
March 1673: “Estimo Vuestra Excelencia el cuydado que habrá aplicado al avio del cajoncillo por que le
tiene a mi muger su llegada con la impaciencia a que piden las chucherías de la patria”. From San German,
Molina responded to Lira, on 31 March: “el caxoncillo se ha enviado a Bruselas a persona de mi satisfacción
que en el primera ocasión segura no de dexará de encaminarle a Vuestra Excelencia”.
43
  AGS, E., 8349, Letter from Lira to the Baron of Guepen d’Odimont, from Brussels, 8 June 1673:
“Atrevome a embarazaros con una suplica de que os sirváis en fee de vuestra galantería de dar alguna carta
de recomendación en Colonia para alguna persona de vuestra satisfacción a mi mayordomo a quien embio
a aquella villa para que me busque casa de manera que la tenga tomada antes de mi viaje que espero em-
prender dentro de seis dias”.
44
  AGS. E. 8652 Letters written by Lira, from The Hague, from 14 August 1673: “Todos mis pasos se

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From Cologne, the alliance now signed, using a theatrical simile to which he
was wont to appeal, he described his negotiations for peace: “… as this cannot
be seen from the balcony, it is very easy to tell fortune and errors apart”45. He
also bemoaned the complex and arduous diplomatic work his role entailed: “the
Devil saw fit to involve me in public festivities, when I might yet be scratching my
backside as introducer of ambassadors”46. In another letter, he claims to be tired
of The Hague and keen to return to Spain. He believed that negotiating treaties
required the presence in Holland of a royal individual, or at least one of the upper
nobility, who had the means to represent the Crown with sufficient dignity, aware
as he was of the embassies’ needs for decorous representation47. For these reasons,
he requested the permission from the Consejo de Flandes to return to Spain, to once
more take up his role as conductor de embajadores48.

In February 1674, Lira described the extreme nervousness of those negotiating

the Anglo-Dutch alliance, and how he himself approached the difficult political
situation: “I am so deeply devoted to the Mother of God that she intervenes,
and threats and false reports cause me little dismay, and though many raise their
eyebrows in political gestures, I reduce them to buffoonery”49. Five days later, on 19
February 1674, Holland signed a treaty with England, the Treaty of Westminster

encaminan con holandeses a que no acavemos de pendernos todos, siendo increíble su abatimiento augmen-
tado con la influencia de los embajadores en cuyo seguimiento vine”.
45
  AGS, E. 8367, Letter from Lira to D. Bernardo de Salinas, from Cologne, 1673: “como esto no se
puede veer desde el balcón, es muy fácil juzgar los yerros de las suertes”. Such pictorial references were also
commonplace in Lira’s language. See also AGS, E. 8586, Letter from Lira to Coloma, from The Hague, 28
October 1677: “Though Your Excellence’s allusions to Apeles are made at my expense, it pleases me that
Your Excellence is of good humour, which is the finest colour of the heart, for the brush-strokes of one’s
countenance and life, such that its enjoyment shall not be marred by the stains of our ill fortune”; and in
another letter from The Hague, dated 9 December 1677: “The comprehension with which Your Excellence
sees and draws the universal theatre comes from no few years of experience, (...) we can be no worse off than
we are: Your Excellence, confront this text with the strokes of your pen”.
46
  AGS, E., 8367, Letter from Lira to D. Bernardo de Salinas, from Cologne, 29 September 1673: “el
Diablo me metió a mi en fiestas públicas, pudiendo estarme rascando el culo y conduciendo embajadores”.
47
  AGS, E., 8367. Letter from Lira to D. Bernardo de Salina, from Cologne, 25 October 1673: “quando
se hubieren de tratar paces ha menester aquí la reina, ya como principal un duque por embaxador que tenga
ciencia infusa y oropel con que lucir”.
48
  AGS, E., Leg. 3980, Letter written by Lira, from Cologne, 2 October 1673. See also note 6.
49
  AGS, E., Leg. 8485, Folio 113, Letter written by Lira, 16 February 1674: “yo soy muy deboto de la
madre de Dios que se metera de por medio, y me espantan poco amenazas y sobres falsos, y aunque muchos
arquean las cejas con ademanes politicos, yo les reduzco a bufonada”.

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(ratified by the States General on 5 March), a treaty due, in part, to Lira’s mediation,
as he himself pointed out in another letter: “the pacification of England, which the
Dutch have achieved in part through the seed of my first offices”50. Other letters help
us to comprehend Lira’s religiosity, and the role he assigns the Virgin’s protection in
the achievement of the treaty. While he was busy negotiating peace with England,
he interceded first with the queen, and then with the Viceroy of Naples, Marquis
of Astorga, to request that they award a grant of 300 ducats per year to Cologne’s
convent of Barefoot Carmelites, founded by Charlota de Urquina51 and the Countess
of Croy in 164952. In this Spanish institution, he claimed, could be found without
a church “the miraculous image of our lady of the peace whose protection is so
necessary for the favourable conclusion of the present war”. His devotion to this
image, a wooden statue donated to the convent by Marie de’ Medici, would allow
him to better conduct his political negotiations.
“My Lady; the mother Isabel of the Holy Spirit [at the time Lady Isabel of
Urquina], a nun in the Barefoot Carmelite convent of our lady of the peace in the
imperial city of Cologne, where she was sent from Flanders to found said convent,
states that through the mercy of our lord the king who is in glory, and through his
royal decree of 17 August 1622, it pleased His Majesty to award an allowance of
300 ducats a year, in the Naples of her father Matheo de Urquina, a knight of the
Order of Santiago and secretary of state and war to His Majesty and the most serene
Lord Archduke Albert and Lady Isabella; this allowance, however, was never paid
from that year of 1622 until 1667 when it pleased Your Majesty to order the Count
of Peñaranda, then Viceroy of Naples, to pay these 300 ducats, punctually and in
perpetuity, and abrogating all orders to the contrary which in his day gave the count
special exemption, the supplicant having applied this wage to the establishment and
sustenance of this foundation, where can be found without a church the miraculous
image of our lady of the peace, whose protection is so necessary for the favourable
conclusion of the present war; in consideration of which, and of the benefits that
this holy house receives from the Lady Empress Maria, from whose royal hand
many letters are kept in memorial, humbly requests of Your Majesty that should it
not be possible that this allowance of 300 ducats perpetuate in the convent, that the
payment at least be continued after the death of the supplicant, until the forty-five

50
  AGS, E., Leg. 3980, Letter from Lira to the queen, from Cologne, 30 April 1674: “la pacificación de
Inglaterra que en parte la han conseguido holandeses por la planta de mis primeros oficios”.
51
  Probably related to Francisco de Urquina, secretary of the Germany embassy.
52
  This Carmelite convent in Cologne was dissolved in the Napoleonic era.

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whole years have passed that are owed and which were not paid from 1622 until
1667, as Your Majesty sees fit, may God protect her”53.

The actions and public representations of the embassies, and the impression
of their splendour which the Dutch took away with them, were most important,
according to Lira: “the great clamour and impression of this English embassy have
caused me the gravest of concerns”54. He refers to the arrival at The Hague, in
December 1674, of the counts of Arlington and Ofery, who “more resemble agents
of France than plenipotentiaries of England”55. After using his pen to do battle
with certain interests contrary to the Spanish, only one task remained for Lira: “to
erase from public memory the pernicious impressions left by that embassy, given
the powerful inclination with which the Dutch yearn for peace”56. Years later, in a
similar vein, Lira referred to the French diplomatic delegations in Europe, which
managed, with discordant public demonstrations, “to make many parties work
against their true interests”57.

53
  AGS, E., 8349, Letter from Lira to the queen, from Cologne, 30 April 1674: “La madre Isabel del
espitiru santo (en el siglo doña Isabel de Urquina) religiosa en el convento de nuestra señora de la paz de car-
melitas descalças en la ciudad imperial de Colonia, a donde la enviaron de Flandes a fundarle, dice que por
merced del rey nuestro señor que está en gloria y por su real despacho de 17 de agosto de 1622 fue su majestad
servido hacerla merced de 300 ducados de renta al año en el reino de Nápoles de los seiscientos qua gozaba
su padre Matheo de Urquina caballero del orden de santiago y secretario de estado y guerra de su majestad de
los seren. Señores archiduques Alberto y doña Isabel; que la renta referida no se le ha pagado desde el dicho
año de 1622 hasta el de 1667 que se sirvió vuestra majestad mandar al conde de Peñaranda siendo virrey
de Nápoles se pagasen en adelante con puntualidad los dichos 300 ducados derogando todas las ordenes en
contrario a que el conde en su tiempo dio puntual exemcion haviendo la suplicante aplicado esta renta al
establecimiento y sustento de esta fundación donde se halla sin iglesia la imagen milagrosa de nuestra señora
de la paz cuyo patrocinio es tan necesario para el fin dichoso de la guerra presente; en cuya consideración y la
de los beneficios que recibió esta santa casa de la señora emperatriz María, de cuya real mano se guardan por
memoria muchas cartas suplica a vuestra majestad humildemente que cuando no pueda ser que esta dicha
renta de 300 ducados se perpetue en el convento por lo menos se le continue la paga después de la muerte de
la suplicante hasta que se extingan los cuarenta y cinco años enteros que se le deven y se le dexaron de pagar
desde el de 1622 hasta el 1667 como lo espera de la real justificación, que dios guarde”.
54
  AGS, E., 8652, Letter written by Lira, from The Hague, 16 December 1674: “en grandísimo cuydado
me ha tenido el ruydo y aparato exterior desta embajada inglesa”.
55
  AGS, E., 8652, Letter written by Lira, from The Hague, 16 December 1674: “más parecen agentes
de la Francia que plenipotenciarios de Inglaterra”.
56
  AGS, E., 8652, Letter written by Lira, from The Hague, 16 December 1674: “borrar de la idea destos
pueblos las perniciosas impresiones que ha hecho essa embajada en la propensión con la que anhelan aquí
la paz”.
57
  AGS, E., 8652, Letter from Lira to Fuentes, from The Hague, 1 May 1676: “Veo la arenga que hizo
a esa Republica el embajadorcito de Francia siendo de reparar no solo lo expresivo de sus términos sino
lo arrogante de su proposición. De esta manera han atraído a sus máximas casi todas las cortes de Europa

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While negotiations for peace in northern Europe were coming to fruition, and
Spain’s allies endured military defeats58, Lira also had to pay heed to Italian matters,
the foremost being the Messina Revolt, and to send assistance to the war being
waged in the Mediterranean59. The missives he exchanged with ministers in Italy
highlight the differences in how diplomatic practice was perceived in Holland and
Italy. On one occasion, an ambassador in Venice confessed to Lira that, concerning
news in Italy, he limited himself to “only reading the gazettes of the north” 60. In
a letter Lira wrote to the ambassador in Venice, Gaspar de Teves, Marquis de la
Fuente, he admitted his bitterness concerning the scant support he received from
the Consejo de Estado: “often awarding reprimands for services which in another
century would have warranted statues”61. He also praised the theatrical work which
Fuente had staged in Venice in September 1675, which spoke of the Spanish-Dutch
alliance62. This dramatic work aimed to combat the “insult” which Venetians had
levelled at the alliance.
“I [Lira] have noticed here the Venetian’s insult to the States General and have
convinced the regency of Her Majesty, may God protect her, to write a letter to
the Venetian senate, of which I have delivered a copy to the Lord Marquis de la
Fuente, to be sent to the Dutch consul in Venice, that he may communicate directly
with Her Majesty, which details the work of our alliances and the obligation of the
Dutch to share with us the same fortune in peace and war, with which I hope that
Venice will open its eyes and look carefully at how they deal with France and how
they resolve to once again hinder us in the gulf ”63.

haciendo obrar a muchas contra sus verdaderos intereses y de esta manera temo que han de hacer creer a
estos afrancesados señores que les conviene apoyar a quien les mete la guerra en sus vecindades y a quien
se la meterá en su casa”.
58
  AGS, E., 8652, Letter written by Lira, 10 August 1676.
59
  AGS, E., 8652, Letter written by Lira, from The Hague, to the 2nd Marquis de la Fuente, ambassa-
dor in Venice, 12 September 1675.
60
  AGS, E., 8733, Letter from Villagarcía to Lira, from Venice, 15 July 1678: “solo a leer las gacetas
del Norte”.
61
  AGS, E., 8652, Letter from Lira to the Marquis de la Fuente, 12 September 1675, from The Hague:
“dandose reprehensiones muchas veces a oficios que en otro siglo huvieran conseguido estatuas”.
62
  AGS, E., 8652, Letter from Lira to the Marquis de la Fuente, 12 September 1675, from The Hague:
“Sino nos hubiese de costar tan caro como recelo el insulto que no ha hecho essa República en el golfo casi
le diera yo por bien empleado al precio de haver visto papel tan bien escrito y tan fundamental como el que
v e dio en escena de que se sirve remitirme copia”.
63
  AGS, E., 8652, Letter written by Lira, from The Hague, 9 November 1675: “Yo (Lira) he dado
quenta aquí del insulto de venecianos a los estados generales por orden de Su majestad que dios guarde y

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The theatrical performance was not the only text that Lira received from Fuente,
as in another letter he writes: “that Your Excellency believes my palate so refined
that I may discern the thrust of his writings, leaves me vainer and more satisfied
than their communication itself ”64. Not only with the ambassador of Venice did
Lira maintain a regular correspondence; in a letter addressed to the ambassador
of Rome, Lira refers to the conclave of 1676, with a reflection of extraordinary
richness on Roman politics. In essence, this testimony represents a defence of the
secularisation of European politics.
“Although I confess my profound ignorance of Italy’s affairs, whereby I cannot
reason in them with skill, nevertheless the secular powers’ efforts towards faith
and religion have always struck me as evil and scandalous, in that I believe that
they should at once leave the church of God to its eternal providence, and in their
approach to princely interests, I consider the court of Rome so miserable that I find
no reason for the great efforts of the Catholic monarchs, that is, to see this or that
cardinal appointed, petitions which might be of human value if the supreme pontiffs
had more ships and forces against infidels and rebels than houses of cronies against
their obligation and conscience; if I were a monarchy’s ambassador in Rome, I
would retire to the countryside for the duration of the conclave” 65.

conseguido escriba esta regencia a aquel senado una carta que he remitido original al señor marqués de la
Fuente para que o por si por mi dé al mismo cónsul de Holanda y pase los oficios con ella que tuviere por
mas convenientes en que se les declara el empeño de nuestras alianzas y la obligación en que están holan-
deses de correr la misma fortuna con nosotros en paz y guerra, con que espero abran el occhio y miren muy
bien como se empeñan con la Francia y como resuelven el embarazarnos otra vez el passaje del golfo”.
64
  AGS, E., 8652, Letter from Lira to Fuente, 10 October 1675: “que Vuestra excelencia me tenga por
de paladar tan delicado que pueda discernir el fuste de sus escritos me dexa mas vano y mas agradecido que
la misma comunicación dellos”. The book by P. Gillgren and M. Snickare, Performativity and Performance
in Baroque Rome, 2012, explores the relationship between diplomacy and theatricality in the seventeenth
century in several of its essays.
65
  AGS, E., 8652, Letter written by Lira, 24 August 1676: “aunque confieso mi profunda ignorancia
en los negocios de Italia, no puedo discurrir en ellos con acierto, siendo asi que hacia la fe y la religión me
han parecido siempre mal y escandalosas las diligencias de las potencias seculares en lo que creo que para la
iglesia de dios debe dejarse inmediatamente a su eterna providencia, y en lo que mira a intereses de princi-
pes, considero tan miserable la corte de roma que no allo razon para las grandes aplicaciones que veo en las
coronas católicas, en orden a que sea este o aquel cardenal el elegido, cuyas instancias pudieran ser buenas
en lo humano quando los sumos pontífices tenian galeras y fuerzas contra infieles y rebeldes y menos casatas
de nepotes contra su obligación y conciencia, yo si fuera embajador ridiculo de una monarquía en roma me
fuera a passear al campo mientras durasse el conclave”.

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❚  THE HOME OF THE SPANISH AMBASSADOR TO THE HAGUE

Private dwellings were the sites par excellence for meetings and diplomatic
negotiation in the Early Modern period, above all in small courts without a long
tradition of embassies, such as The Hague, which did not enjoy an extensive
network of alternative spaces —unlike Rome, where national churches were also
used as spaces of negotiation. The gazettes of The Hague demonstrate how, in these
residences, important conversations took place concerning the signing of treaties:
“On the 20th occurred a meeting in the house of the English ambassador, with the
intervention of the Spanish ambassador, who promised complete satisfaction to the
ministers of the triple alliance”66.

Other accounts narrate the importance of the banquets which, with some
regularity, were held in the house of one ambassador or another and which, without
a doubt, must have laid the foundations for more than one treaty: “Yesterday
Denmark’s envoy extraordinary offered a meal to the ambassadors of France
and England and other ministers, while the day before the English ambassador
hosted the Count of Guldeleu, who has now returned to Denmark”67. When these
banquets were accompanied by abundant alcohol, they could befuddle peace, rather
than cultivate it, as Lira maintained concerning the Treaty of Nijmegen: “we have
had here a number of climacteric days of negotiations, visits, meetings (...) and
terminating in drunken stupors which upset not only time but reason, thanks to
which I have been unable to even send copies of what I have written to the Lord
Duke of Villahermosa during these days”68.

Manuel de Lira came to send a letter to the Consejo de Estado, two months
after his arrival at The Hague, requesting financial assistance for the cost of the

66
  ASV, Segreteria di Stato, Avvisi, 40, fol. 20, Aviso from The Hague, 20 February 1670: “Fu alli 20
tenuta una conferenza in casa dell’ambasciatore Inglese, con l’intervento di quello di Spagna, quale promise tutte le sod-
disfationi che potevano essere desiderate da i ministri della triple aleanza”.
67
  ASV, Segreteria di Stato, Avvisi, 40, fol. 20, Aviso from The Hague, fol. 27, 3 February 1670: “Hieri
l’inviato straordinario di Dinamarca diede pranzo alli ambasciatori di Francia e d’Inghilterra ed ad altri ministri, e
quello d’Inghilterra convitò l’altro hieri il Conte di Guldeleu, ch’è qua di ritorno di Dinamarca”.
68
  AGS, E., 8487, fol. 27, Letter from Lira to Fuente, 19 October 1677: “hemos tenido aquí unos días
climatericos de negocios, visitas, conferencias (...) y por remate de todo borracheras que no solo usurpan el
tiempo pero la razón, con que ni aún copias de lo que he escrito al señor duque de Villahermosa estos días
he podido remitir”.

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banquets “which take place every day, these being the only means of conducting
this manner of gathering”69. The council considered that although Lira was an
envoy extraordinary rather than an ambassador, no exception need be made for
these types of expenses and that they should assist him in his request70.

The Count of Molina, for his part, explained on one occasion that the
ambassadors’ homes were places where secrets were shared, as he had experienced
in Paris: while staying in the home of the English ambassador to discuss the fate
of Charleroi, the latter revealed that Molina was to be replaced by an ambassador
of lesser calibre71. Whether of greater or lesser stature, all ambassadors lived an
itinerant life, making their home wherever their postings took them. Manuel de
Lira expressed his sympathy with this situation to Molina, who was at the time en
route to Amiens, moving house: “with the life of a gypsy, one’s possessions always
on one’s back, I find neither calmness nor comforts, as I have part of my family in
the chapel at The Hague, my wife in Brussels, and myself here; Your Excellency can
see for himself the frustrations of a makeshift household”72.

On another occasion, Lira spoke more directly of his residence in The Hague,
when he stated: “it is so unworthy and uncomfortable that I find it impossible to
sleep there, in addition to other fine qualities, there being no fireplace; not even the
sum of my belongings would afford it decency, and with such uncertainty I do not
know whether to have them fetched or send away those I have”73.

The house to which Lira refers is the same one rented by the Spanish
ambassadors in The Hague since 165274: although it was uncomfortable, its chapel

  AGS, E., Leg. 3980, dispatch of 20 October 1671: “que ocurrían cada día por ser el único medio de
69

negociar este género de concurrencias”.

70
  AGS, E., Leg. 3980, dispatch of 20 October 1671.
71
  Archives Generales du Royaume, Brussels, Leg. 511, Letter written by Molina, from Paris, 24 March 1673.
72
  Archives Generales du Royaume, Brussels, Leg. 511, Letter written by Lira, from Cologne, 3 July
1673: “con una vida de gitano, con los trastos a cuestas siempre, yo no mondo quietudes ni comodidades,
pues tengo parte de mi familia con la capilla en La Haya, mi mujer en Bruselas, y yo aquí, mire Vuestra
excelencia por si mismo que traça de menaje y de hacer casa con azulejos”.
73
  AGS, E., Leg. 8367. Letter from Lira to D. Bernardo de Salinas, from The Hague, 19 October, 1673:
“es tan indigna y incomoda que me es imposible el hibernar en ella pues además de otras buenas calidades
no hay chimenea que mis trastos aún juntos no bastan a la decencia quanto más separados que con la incer-
titud ni se si traerlos o embiar los que tengo”.
74
  The palace still exists in Westeinde, 12. I thank Maurits Ebben his bibliographical information about
the palace: Paulus Gerardus Bongaerts, “De St. Teresia-kerk, weleer de koninklijke kapel van Spanje”, The

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had been attended, for the last fourteen years, by hundreds of Catholics who lived
in the city75. The neighbourhood’s residents had long become accustomed to the
droves of Catholics at this chapel, and moving it to another part of the city would
risk altercations with the common people due to the “hatred of the heretic rabble”
towards the Catholics76.
“For sixteen years have the ambassadors and servants of Your Majesty in Holland
inhabited this same house in which I live, and although it has certain discomforts,
I believe that all have agreed (like myself) to remain here for the convenience and
peace of the Catholic vassals of this land, who frequent the chapel for its capacity
and for its location, where they find themselves less exposed to the hatred directed
towards their assembly, and the objection of the heretic rabble, who despise in their
own countrymen (with even greater aversion than in foreigners) the worship of
our sacred religion, the residents of this neighbourhood already being accustomed
(through familiarity) to the continuous stream of those who frequent this temple of
greater glory to God and to the royal Catholic heaven of Your Majesty”77.

Lira explained to the queen that, for many years, the owner of the house had
repeatedly attempted to evict them, employing two arguments: the first being
damage to the structure of the building, caused by the great abundance of people
attending the chapel; the second, that the embassy owed two and a half years of
rent, more than 30,000 escudos, a debt Lira was quite unable to pay. The owner,
sick and tired of the situation, had put the house up for sale, and Lira feared the
problems which leaving the property could entail:
“With the most severe harm to our religion and credibility, as there will be
none in The Hague who will give their house to Your Majesty’s embassy after the
punishment we have inflicted for so many years on the current landlord, where we

Hague, 1866. See as well Sir Peter Garran, ”Westeinde 12 - The Embassy Story”, en Vereniging Die Hague,
Jaarboek, 1966.
75
  AGS, E., Leg. 3980. Letter written by Lira, 29 October 1675.
76
  AGS, E., Leg. 3980. Letter from Lira to the queen, from The Hague, 15 September 1676.
77
  AGS, E., Leg. 3980, Letter from Lira to the queen, from The Hague, 15 September 1676: “Dieciséis
años ha que los embajadores y criados de Vuestra majestad en esta residencia de Holanda habitan la misma
casa en que vivo y aunque tiene algunas descomodidades propias creo que todos han atendido (como yo)
a mantenerse en ella por la conveniencia y quietud de los católicos vasallos deste estado que frecuentan la
capilla por su capacidad y por la posición en que se halla menos expuesta al odio al concurso y al reparo
de la plebe hereje que aborrece en sus propios paysanos (con más antipatía que en los forasteros) el culto de
nuestra sagrada religión, estando ya hechos (con la costumbre) los vecinos deste barrio a la procesión con-
tinua delos que frecuentan este templo a mayor gloria de dios y del real católico celo de Vuestra majestad”.

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destroy his house and do not settle our debts. In addition to this inconvenience is
the risk of the rabble of other neighbourhoods, and of the setback which befell the
ambassador of Portugal, here in these same States General, who was informed
that the gathering of Catholics in his home would no longer be tolerated, that they
scandalised the people with their assemblies and that, while allowing them their
immunity while indoors, the people would violently hinder in the streets those who
were vassals of this regency – as has taken place elsewhere in these provinces where
devotion has been made, the heresy of Catholicism being as scandalous here as
Judaism in Spain”78.

As a result, Manuel de Lira requested that the queen purchase the house, which
he described in the following manner: “its fabric, although old, is good and firm.
The plot is large, the price entirely moderate in everyone’s opinion; being valued at
twenty thousand ducats, it is believed that it would be sold at half that price”. The
principal reason he employed to convince the queen was “it is not only advisable for
the service of Your Majesty, but also for God and our religion”.
“I do not doubt that with a bid of one thousand ducats, or five hundred, Your
Majesty could acquire a dedicated room, acceptable and suitably economical,
for your ministers in Holland, given that our alliance with this monarchy seems
naturally unbreakable while we remain in Flanders; it is not economy, however, or
any other cause, but the matter of religion and of the Catholics hereabout which
oblige me to make this request, which I bring to Your Majesty’s attention only to
avoid most serious inconveniences”79.

78
  AGS, E., Leg. 3980, Letter from Lira to the queen, from The Hague, 15 September 1676: “Con
gravisimo perjuicio de la religión y del crédito pues no habrá en la haya quien dé su casa a la embaxada
de Vuestra majestad con el escarnimiento de lo que ha muchos años le está sucediendo con nosotros al
propietario desta que se la destruymos y no se la satisfacemos. Después deste inconveniente hay el riesgo
de la plebe en otros barrios, y el del contratiempo que le sucedió aquí al embaxador de Portugal con los
mismos estados generales que le enviaron a decir que no se le sufriría más la entrada de los católicos en su
posada que escandalizaban el pueblo con el concurso y que dejándole su inmunidad de puertas adentro lo
embarazarían violentamente en la calle a los que eran vasallos desta regencia, como ha sucedido otras veces
por que en estas Provincias donde se ha hecho devoción la herejía es tan escandaloso lo católico como en
España el judaísmo”.
79
  AGS, E., Leg. 3980, Letter from Lira to the queen, from The Hague, 15 September 1676: “… no
dudo que con mil, o con quinientos que se puje la postura puede Vuestra majestad tener una habitación
propia, decente y sumamente barata para sus ministros en Hollanda, siendo así que nuestra alianza con esta
regencia parece naturalmente indisoluble mientras mantuviéramos a Flandes, pero no siendo la economía,
ni las demas causas, sino el punto de la religión y de los católicos el que me obliga a esta representación solo
pongo en la real consideración de Vuestra majestad si para evitar gravísicimo inconvenientes”.

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Manuel de Lira was persuasive enough that he managed to convince the Consejo
de Estado to approve the purchase of the house80. It thus came to form part of the
network of residences owned by the Spanish monarchy in diverse European courts.
In Rome, for example, the embassy’s palace had been purchased in the era of the
ambassador Oñate, in 164781. The French embassy had owned a house in The
Hague before the Spanish, a fact which may well have influenced the decision to
acquire a permanent residence. Every embassy, without exception, had to pay a tax
to the States General, called the “Verponding”, for the ownership of a diplomatic
residence82. During Lira’s embassy, not only was the house purchased, but it was
decorated extensively, as detailed in the accounts which were presented to the
Consejo de Estado in 167883, with shields and portraits of Charles II and Philip IV.
“It having been essential to continue the repairs on the house which on the
orders of Your Majesty was purchased for this embassy, and for the convenience
of the Catholics who frequent this chapel, every attempt has been made to perfect
it completely: patios and gardens have been raised with more than three hundred
barrels of earth, which has been necessary due to the subsistence of the land over
time, which had thus attracted all the waters in the vicinity, to the detriment of
the walls and paving which have been replaced. Fireplaces have been rebuilt; wells
sunk; roofs repaired; Your Majesty’s coat of arms placed in various areas; a number
of cornices painted and gilded; and portraits hung of our lord the king, God protect
him, Philip IV, who is in glory; to which end have been spent, to complete the
decoration and decency of this asset (its value now being twice that at its purchase)
two thousand, three hundred and ninety-one escudos”84.

80
 The Consejo de Estado, made up of Pedro Antonio de Aragón and the Duke of Osuna, was in
agreement with the need to make this purchase: AGS, E., Leg. 3980, dispatch of 25 October 1676.
81
  Alessandra Anselmi, Il palazzo dell’Ambasciata di Spagna presso la Santa Sede, Rome, De Luca Editore,
2001.
82
  The “Verponding” came to one hundred and thirteen Dutch florins annually, the equivalent of forty-
five escudos.
83
  AGS, E., Leg. 3980, 10 May 1678. Accounts of Lira’s spending in the last six months, from November
to May: 24,000 escudos. The amount spent on repairing and embellishing the residence is calculated at
23,912 escudos.
84
  AGS, E., Leg. 3980, 10 May 1678: “Haviendo sido preciso continuar los reparos de la casa que de
orden de su majestad se compró en propiedad para esta embajada, y para la conveniencia de los catolicos
que frecuentan su capilla se ha proseguido en las disposiciones de perfeccionarla de todo, levantar los patios
y jardines con más de trescientas barcas de tierra que han sido menester por lo que se había bajado el terreno
con el tiempo y atraído así todas las aguas de la vecindad con detrimento de las paredes de la cerca y empe-
drados que se han hecho de nuevo, vuelto a fabricar chimeneas, arqueado pozos renovando techos y puesto
en diferentes partes las armas de su majestad, pintado y dorado algunas cornisas, puesto retratos del rey

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Figura 1.  First floor, Spanish Embassy's palace in The Hague, © Archivo General
de Simancas (AGS), Mapas, Planos y Dibujos (MPD), 16, 095.

Figura 2.  Second floor, Spanish Embassy's palace in The Hague, © Archivo
General de Simancas (AGS), Mapas, Planos y Dibujos (MPD), 16, 096.

nuestro señor que dios guarde, de Phelipe quarto que está en gloria, en que se han empleado por remate del
adorno y decencia de esta posesión (quedando el doblado valor de quando se compró) dos mil trescientos
y noventa y un escudos”.

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Figura 3.  Façade, Spanish Embassy's palace in The Hague,

© Archivo General de Simancas (AGS), Mapas, Planos y Dibujos (MPD), 16, 098.

Figura 4.  Back façade, Spanish Embassy's palace in The Hague,

© Archivo General de Simancas (AGS), Mapas, Planos y Dibujos (MPD), 16, 099.

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Immediately after the Treaty of Utrecht, which marked the end of the War
of the Spanish Succession, in 1714, the then secretary of the Despacho de Estado,
José de Grimaldi, sent a letter from The Hague to the king, explaining the repairs
which had been carried out on the house and chapel of the Spanish embassy, and
those which were still outstanding. Accompanying the missive were interior and
exterior plans of the building, “as it is found at this moment”, which allow us to
appreciate today the palace’s appearance and internal layout (Figs. 1-4). Grimaldi,
seizing upon this dynastic changeover and the king’s need to differentiate this era
from the former, suggested to the monarch the possibility of demolishing the house
(if not the chapel) and building a new house “a la moderna”, attaching a design
for the same. Its author saw the old house that Lira occupied as a prison, devoid
of beauty and utility, and of his new vision said “The new project aims to afford
greater comfort to this place, which is large and spacious and of no utility nor
beauty, resembling nothing more than a prison, its walls being so high and made of
earth, all without any shape or regular order”85.

❚  AGENT OF ARTISTS AND COLLECTORS.

The care Lira lavished upon the embassy’s house and chapel was, as we have
observed, supreme. He decorated the palace with portraits of the King of Spain, but also
commissioned paintings for the chapel, as revealed by a payment in February 167286.

In addition, he was soon named as agent of the 10th Admiral of Castile, Juan
Gaspar Enríquez de Cabrera, a prominent art collector in Spain, with whom he
maintained an active correspondence87. Shortly after occupying the embassy, in

85
  AGS, E., Leg. 6384, 6 September 1714. Plans and designs of the royal house in the Hague: “… il
nuovo progetto è prender maggior comodità il sito che è abbondante et di nessuna utilità ne bellezza assomigliando a una
pregione, essendo i parapetti tanto alti di terra e di tutto diformato senza ordine di regolarità”.
86
  AGS, 8349, Letter from Lira to Monsieur de Thienes (?), Abbot of Dunas, from The Hague, 4 Fe-
bruary 1672: “Monsieur, Aussytot que la peinture que j’avais fait faire pour l’autel de cette chapelle a eté
achevée. J’ay fait oster celle que vous avés reclamée, et la deliverer au R. P Smit de quoy je viens vous donner
part, et avec cette occasion vous confirmer que je suis”.
87
  Concerning the links between art and diplomacy, see: José Luis Colomer, ed., Arte y Diplomacia de
la monarquía hispánica en el siglo XVII, Madrid: Fernando Villaverde, 2003; Elisabeth Cropper, The Diplomacy
of Art. Artistic Creation and Diplomacy in Seicento Italy, Milan: Nuova Alfa, 2000. Studies have already
taken place into the Admiral of Castile’s relationships with other embassies, such as that of Venice, in his

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December 1671, Lira wrote a letter to the admiral, in which he related his attempts
to seek paintings the latter might find of interest, not only in The Hague, but also
in Leiden and Amsterdam. The admiral had transmitted, some months earlier, his
wish that Lira act as his agent in the acquisition of works of art, and had forwarded
him a document written by the Dutch ambassador in Madrid concerning the most
highly prized Dutch painters, in an attempt to assist him in his search. Lira was
to provide the admiral with detailed information concerning any opportunity to
expand his collection that might be found in Holland.

In his letter, Lira describes how he had attempted to locate these painters and
their works, displaying a keen eye for such matters. He showed his feel for Dutch
painting when he referred to Adrian Hanneman, a renowned portraitist who had
died only months earlier, son of a Catholic family of The Hague, evaluating his
painting in the following manner: “it is the greatest of the portraits in the style of
Van Dyck, paler and less natural”88. Lira knew of the admiral’s penchant for the
paintings of Gerrit Dou, and was able to verify that the painter was, at that time,
in Germany. He also confirmed that Dou, who he defined as “a man of particular
genius”89, had painted the boy with the light in his hand purchased by the admiral
at the Marquis of Caracena’s auction. Lira gave his opinion of the Dutch painters’
personalities, who he qualified as people given to drink and a disordered lifestyle:
“each one of these eminent fellows (atop a foundation of drunkenness) has a strange
genius with which they mould the caprice of their manner of living”90.

campaign to expand his collection, but until now we have known nothing of his links to the embassy in The
Hague or other embassies in the north of Europe: Angela Delaforce, “From Madrid, to Lisbon and Vienna:
the journey of the celebrated paintings of Juan Tomás Enríquez de Cabrera, Almirante de Castilla”, The
Burlington Magazine, 149 (2007), pp. 246-255; Leticia de Frutos Sastre, “Tintoretto en las colecciones del
marqués del Carpio y el Almirante de Castilla”, in M. Falomir, ed., Jacopo Tintoretto, Brepol Publishers,
2009; The Admiral of Castile’s art collecting is the object of a doctoral thesis in progress, the work of
Cristina Agüero, at the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED).
88
 AGS, E., Leg. 8485, Fol. 16, 17, Letter from Lira to the Admiral of Castile, from The Hague,
1 December 1671: “es lo más de retratos al modo de Van Dyck más lamido y menos natural”.
89
 AGS, E., Leg. 8485, Fol. 16, 17, Letter from Lira to the Admiral of Castile, from The Hague,
1 December 1671: “hombre de genio particular”.
90
 AGS, E., Leg. 8485, Fol. 16, 17, Letter from Lira to the Admiral of Castile, from The Hague,
1 December 1671: “cualquiera de estos hombres eminentes (sobre el cimiento de la borrachera) tiene dife-
rentes genios en que amolda el capricho de su modo de vivir”.

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 232   manuel de lira, spanish ambassador to the hague (1671-1678)…

His letters also explain how he travelled to Amsterdam in search of paintings,

visiting the city council’s palace in the financial heart of the city. Construction
of this building had begun in 1648, coinciding with the Dutch Republic’s
independence, and it had become, through its decorative programme, a declaration
of the independent republic’s ideals of government. A complex iconographic
programme of the humanist school depicted Amsterdam as the centre of the world,
with allegories of fortitude and wisdom91. It is surprising to note that the building’s
political messages appear to have been wasted on a man as cultured as Lira. He
was interested only in the style of its canvases, of impressive dimensions, which he
judged in the following manner: “they possess certain traces of Rubens, with less
gallantry and more softness, but more vividly coloured than reality”92.

In his letter to the Admiral of Castile, then, Lira showed that he knew Dutch
painting well, but also that he knew his way around: he had received word of a
gallery of paintings belonging to a French gentleman in The Hague, which he
planned to visit to determine whether he could purchase anything of interest. On
the whole, however, Lira was of the opinion that the main market for art was in Paris
and London, as “among the Dutch there are few who apply money to the pursuit of
taste, and those who have ability cannot survive where they are not reimbursed with
esteem and with wealth, there being here a scarcity of spendthrifts”93.
“He [the painter] who was of the most importance here, by the name of
Hanneman, is dead, and I have not found one of his works which does not belong
to an individual of taste with no need to relieve himself of it; as such I inform Your
Excellence that it is a fancy of little economy to attempt to obtain any of his works
here, which are the greatest of the portraits in the style of Van Dyck, only paler and
(based on the little that I understand) less natural.

  Ivan Gaskell, “El Ayuntamiento de Ámsterdam. ¿poder político o poder del arte?”, in Joan Lluís
91

Palos and Diana Carrió-Invernizzi, dirs., La historia imaginada. Construcciones visuales del pasado en la época
moderna, Madrid, 2008, pp. 65-84.
92
 AGS, E., Leg. 8485, Fol. 16, 17, Letter from Lira to the Admiral of Castile, from The Hague,
1 December 1671: “tienen algunos rasgos de Rubens con menos valentía, y más blandura, pero lo colorido
más vivo que el natural”.
93
 AGS, E., Leg. 8485, Fol. 16, 17, Letter from Lira to the Admiral of Castile, from The Hague,
1 December 1671: “entre los Holandeses ay pocos que apliquen el dinero al gusto, y los que tienen havi-
lidad no subsisten donde no se la pagan con la estimación y con el caudal, que es en lo que aquí ay pocos
manirrotos”.

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 Diana Carrió-Invernizzi 233

In Leiden there is another painter, named Miris, whose work is of flowers and
trinkets, supposedly of great delicacy, but I have been able to see nothing of him,
as he is a madman and there is no way to use money to convince him to work, and
only certain friends of his, keeping him inebriated in their homes, might wring any
scraps from his hand, many of which are far from perfect.

There exists another painter of great repute, who also resides in Leiden and
who is named Dou, but it is said that he is in Germany, and through clues I have
been given, it is certainly he who painted the panel of the boy with the light in one
hand, covering it with the other, that Your Excellency acquired in the auction of
the Lord Marquis of Caracena; they say that this man is of an unusual genius but
also little inclined towards work, which difficulty we could easily overcome with
cunning, but that nobody knows if he is to return —each one of these eminent
fellows (atop a foundation of drunkenness) having a rare genius with which he
moulds the caprice of his manner of living, and thus we must not judge them— but
I will not neglect to find out, it seeming to me that it is towards this individual that
Your Excellency is most inclined.

While in Amsterdam the other day, I saw nothing noteworthy save a number
of large historiated altarpieces, depicting various fables, in the town hall, which is
a celebrated building of that city, the man who painted it named Juan Livensen,
whose skill is evident, possessing certain traces of Rubens, with less gallantry and
greater softness, but with colouring more vivid than in reality.

A French gentleman who has served in these states for thirty years, and who
married very well here, has a gallery of pieces by these and other masters, which I
have until now been unable to see, as I was notified only yesterday; if I am able to
obtain anything from him, this will be the best course to satisfy Your Excellency,
as should we be required to have these men paint anything new, this is to become
embroiled in a task which we may fail to achieve even in a great many days, and
where this art most flourishes today (after Italy) is in Paris and in London, as among
the Dutch there are few who apply money to the pursuit of taste, and those who
have ability cannot survive where they are not compensated with esteem and with
wealth, there being here a scarcity of spendthrifts”94.

 AGS, E., Leg. 8485, Fol. 16, 17, Letter from Lira to the Admiral of Castile, from The Hague,
94

1 December 1671: “(pintor) que aquí habia de más importancia que se llamava Hanneman es muerto y no
he hallado pieça suia, que no la tenga persona aficionada con estimación y sin necesidad de deshacerse della
con que digo a Vuestra excelencia que es golosina de poca economía intentar sacar de aquí nada de su mano,
que es lo más de retratos al modo de Van Dyck más lamido, y (a lo poco, que yo entiendo) menos natural.
En Leyden ay otro Pintor que se llama Miris cuia profesión es de flores y chucherías dicen que de primor;

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 234   manuel de lira, spanish ambassador to the hague (1671-1678)…

Lira acted as an agent not only for the Admiral of Castile, but also for other
notables of the court, such as Baltasar Pantoja, who charged him with procuring a
set of bedding and all its components95. Lira sent samples from The Hague, relaying
their prices and the quality of their fabric, saying: “what causes me great discomfort
is judging correctly (having such poor taste as I do)”96. He must not have done
such a poor job, as at the end of his embassy in The Hague, the king turned to Lira
to select, and bring to Spain, several weavers who could satisfy the hungry textile
consumption of the kingdom and the Indies97.

In the latter years of his embassy, Manuel de Lira expressed some of his most
perceptive thoughts concerning the negotiations leading up to the Treaty of Nijmegen.
Once again, a lack of money appeared to be the problem, when he affirmed “we will

deste no he podido ver nada porque es un hombre desvaratado y no hay forma de reducirle por dinero a que
travaje y solo algún amigo suio teniendole en su casa y emborrachandole consigue algun desperdicio de su
mano, y destos ha dexado muchos imperfectos. Otro Pintor hay de gran reputación que también tiene su
abitación en Leyden y se llama Dow pero ahora dicen que está en Alemania y por señas que me han dado
es fixamente el que pinta en table al muchacho con la luz en la mano cubriendola con la otra, que vuestra
excelencia compró en la almoneda del señor Marqués de Caracena, dicen que es hombre de genio particular
pero también obachón y esta dificultad ya la vencieramos con maña, pero no ay quien sepa si ha de bolver,
porque cualquiera de estos hombres eminentes (sobre el cimiento de la borrachera) tiene diferentes genios
en que amolda el capricho de su modo de vivir y no hay tomarles tino pero no me descuidaré en saberlo
por parecerme que es a lo que Vuestra excelencia se inclina más. En Ámsterdam estuve el otro día y no vi
cosa considerable sino unos retablos grandes historiados y de fábulas en la casa del Ayuntamiento que es un
edificio célebre de aquella ciudad, el hombre que lo pintó se llama Juan Livensen, el genio es bueno, tiene
algunos rasgos de Rubens con menos valentía, y más blandura, pero lo colorido más vivo que el natural. Un
caballero francés que sirve a estos estados con un tercio y casó aquí ricamente tiene un cabinete de pieças re-
cogidas destos y otros maestros que hasta ahora no he podido ver por que me dieron ayer la noticia, si a este
se le pudiere sacar algo será el mejor camino que hallemos de obedecer a Vuestra excelencia por lo que toca
a mandar hacer nada a estos hombres nuevamente, es meterse en un empeño de no conseguirlo en muchos
días de más de que oy donde más florece este arte (después de Italia) es en París y en Londres porque entre
los Holandeses ay pocos que apliquen el dinero al gusto, y los que tienen havilidad no subsisten donde no se
la pagan con la estimación y con el caudal, que es en lo que aquí ay pocos manirrotos.”
95
  AGS, E., Leg. 8349, Letter from Lira to Don Baltasar Pantoja, from The Hague, 23 February 1672,
which must have accompanied the bedding samples; AGS, E., Leg. 8485 Folio 16, 17, Letter from Pantoja to
Lira, undated, fol. 20: “The included samples should not dismay, as they are do not demonstrate the colours
but are to help Your Excellence to select or amend a piece as he sees fit, in the colours of his choice, which
will be woven here within 15 days of his command”.
96
  AGS, E., Leg. 8349, Letter from Lira to Don Baltasar Pantoja, from The Hague, 23 February 1672:
“en lo que estoy con gran inquietud es en acertar (quien tiene tan mal gusto como yo)”.
97
  AGS, E., Leg. 4012, dispatch for Don Baltasar de Fuenmayor, 15 January 1680: “A dispatch of 12
August of last year ordered Don Manuel de Lira (finding himself in The Hague) to arrange to bring to this
kingdom certain woven pieces of silk and yarn for the kingdom’s consumption and the provision of the
Indies”.

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lose these territories as pitifully as others if we do not put our money on the table,
the Nijmegen affair shall fail miserably otherwise, and despite all the grandeur of
our diplomatic missions, whether they conclude for good or for ill, they will not have
achieved, nor will they ever achieve, any more than signing what they are ordered to
sign”98. Meanwhile, the Marquis de la Fuente attended the Nijmegen negotiations
personally, and was witness to the continuous gifts which arrived from Paris for
the mediators of the treaty. He wrote to Lira: “a great advantage they bring us in
their manner and even their substance”99. Lira’s pragmatism and scepticism reached
uncharted heights when he stated, shortly after his return to Spain: “I now surrender
in this ill-fated venture, with all its sacraments, as I have neither further honey nor aloe
to apply, that which is bitter in nature not being easy to sweeten by artifice” 100. With
these words, Lira highlighted his own contradiction. This man, who understood the
value of public demonstrations and appearances in the international arena, proved
unable to devise new formulae to counteract the traditional French ability to make
“such a racket”: he managed the purchase of the Crown’s first physical residence
of the embassy in The Hague, and cultivated practices such as art collecting which
for other ambassadors, at other times, had yielded handsome returns. But it was
simply not enough. What was bitter by nature, art could not sweeten. Lira applied
these tired strategies without success, but with a better idea of what measures were
being taken by other Spanish ambassadors, with whom he exchanged news, for
example, concerning theatrical works with political content. The diplomat who had
offered the Crown a lifeline to avoid international isolation, forging new alliances,
felt thwarted due to the lack of resources required to give his embassy the lustre
it deserved, something that, without question, only the loftiest nobles, with their
personal fortunes, were able to enjoy.

98
  AGS, E., Leg. 8670, Letter from Lira to the Count of Arquinto, from The Hague, 3 March 1678:
“perderemos estos dominios tan miserablemente como otros sino los redimimos a dinero de contado, siendo
así que termine esto a Nimega es hecharlo en el pozo pues toda aquella grandeza de embajadas ni ha hecho
ni hace ni hará nada más que firmar lo que se le ordenare y si hubiese concluido mal, o bien en otras partes”.
99
  AGS, E., Leg. 8487, Fol. 196, Letter from Fuente to Lira, from Nijmegen, 21 July 1679: “gran ven-
taja nos llevan en el modo y aun en la substancia”.
100
  AGS, E., Leg. 8586, Letter from Lira to Gabriel de Lecanduri, from The Hague, 18 August 1679:
“ahora remito las calabazas deste malhadado negocio con todos sus sacramentos, a que no tengo más miel
ni azibar que hecharle porque lo que amarga por su naturaleza no es fácil que se endulze por arte”.

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