La invención de los visigodos

A partir de 1570 Felipe II promovió la recuperación iconográfica y cultural del reino visigodo de Toledo como parte de su proyecto político para definir la naciente Monarquía Hispánica. Su neogoticismo entroncó con el que ya protagonizaron siglos antes los reinos peninsulares medievales, y precedería al que desarrollarían los borbones en el siglo XVIII y el estado liberal isabelino en el XIX. En todas estas épocas, imágenes y textos inventaron potentes imaginarios que fueron recreados en galerías de retratos, principalmente por medio de pinturas, esculturas y estampas. From 1570 onwards, Philip II promoted the iconographic and cultural recovery of the Visigothic kingdom of Toledo as part of his political project to define the nascent Spanish Monarchy. His neo-Gothicism was in line with that which had already been pioneered centuries earlier by the medieval kingdoms of the peninsula and would precede that developed by the Bourbons in the 18th century and the liberal Elizabethan period in the 19th century. Throughout these periods, images and texts invented powerful imaginaries that were recreated in portrait galleries, mainly through paintings, sculptures and prints.