HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCE PEDRO OF BOURBON-TWO SICILIES, GRAND MASTER OF THE CONSTANTINIAN ORDER, WAS APPOINTED SEVERAL YEARS AGO BY HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF SPAIN AS PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL OF THE FOUR SPANISH MILITARY ORDERS OF SANTIAGO, CALATRAVA, ALCÁNTARA AND MONTESA.  THE FOUR SPANISH MILITARY ORDERS BESTOW EVERY YEAR A PRESTIGIOUS AWARD TO AN HISTORIAN OF SPAIN AND THE HISPANIC WORLD.  ON MAY 29, 2023, HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS SPOKE AT THE AWARD CEREMONY, WHICH TOOK PLACE IN THE PRESENCE OF THE KING.  THE TEXT OF HIS ADDRESS FOLLOWS.

 

REMARKS BY HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCE PEDRO OF BOURBON-TWO SICILIES AT THE AWARD CEREMONY FOR THE SPANISH ORDERS AWARD – at the Royal Palace of El Pardo on May 29, 2023, in the presence of His Majesty The King of Spain

“Your Majesty,

Minister of the Interior, the Honorable Mr. D. Fernando Grande-Marlaska.

President of the National Heritage, the Honorable Ms. Ana de la Cueva,

Other Officials,

Trustees and Jury of the Spanish Orders Award.

The Honorable Don Giovanni Muto,

Dear friends.

We assemble again in yet another year for the award ceremony of the Spanish Orders Award which, as in previous years, has the honour to be presided over by His Majesty The King. Thank you, Your Majesty, for once again attending this ceremony that values ​​the history of Spain and the entire Hispanic World, recognizing the merit of the most eminent historians of this specialized international academic community.

The Spanish Orders of Santiago, Calatrava, Alcántara and Montesa conceive this award as a service to society, in order to recover, understand and disseminate the rigorous knowledge of History shared by the nations of our “historical community”, using the expression embodied in our Constitution. We feel that the Orders, as institutions which are almost a thousand years old and are linked since the Middle Ages to every corner of our country, in this way are updating and complementing their vocation of service.

But this initiative, in which we take great pride, to promote this historical knowledge through this award, would not be possible without the involvement and financial support of the sponsors of the award, who deserve our gratitude:

Carlos de Palacio y Oriol, representing the Talgo Foundation; Raimundo Perez Hernández y Torra, representing the Ramón Areces Foundation; Manuel Pardo de Vera y Diaz, representing the Royal Association of Hidalgos of Spain; and Ramón Pérez-Maura and Garcia Botín. In this manner, our sponsors show us their generosity, their love for the truth and the most authentic historical memory, their patriotism and their social commitment. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your essential support.

The winner of this fifth annual award is Professor Giovanni Muto. His candidacy was presented by the Federico II University of Naples, through its Department of Humanities. I am not going to recount here the extraordinary merits of Professor Muto, because the Minutes of the Jury are going to be read and the Commendation of the winner by Professor Don Luis Ribot will proceed. I shall only say that Don Giovanni Muto is an international point of reference, essential for the study of what has become known as “Spanish Italy”, in the period between the 16th and 17th centuries.

Congratulations, Professor, on this award, which recognizes the excellence of your research and academic work throughout your entire professional life. It has been awarded for your having highlighted, with the greatest scientific rigour, the historical ties that unite Naples and by extension all of Italy with Spain and with the entire Hispanic World.

Your Majesty, Friends present today, please permit me to make a brief reflection on those centuries-old Spanish-Italian ties and on the very trajectory of our still young award.

In the first year that the Spanish Orders Award was bestowed, Professor Sir John Elliot (may he rest in peace) was honoured. His long and meritorious work was recognized, with its dissemination through the world and its objective independence of analysis, its author’s judgment, which have created a school of notable adherents and students in Spain and in the Anglo-Saxon world, whom we call British Hispanists. It was important to emphasize the success of an objective interpretation by those who devote serious interest to our cultural space without belonging to it.

In the second year, the Award recognized Professor Miguel Ángel Ladero Quesada, an eminent Spanish medievalist, who focused his research on the key period of the peninsular Middle Ages, in which the foundations of Spain and the Hispanic World were laid and which, by the way, was the time of the foundation and development of the Spanish Orders.

The third winner was the Mexican academic, Professor Enrique Krauze, who provides the Ibero-American vision from the other side of the Atlantic; an essential approach to understand the historical development of a Hispanic World that, for centuries, has had its epicenter in the American continent; historically it was known as the New World, the Indies, or the western hemisphere of the Spanish Nation.

The fourth Award went to the distinguished Professor Carmen Iglesias Cano, Countess of Gisbert, with special recognition not only for her excellent contribution in the field of modern Spanish history and political philosophy, but also for the institutional, effective and intelligent promotion of the dissemination of the history of the Hispanic World that she has been overseeing as director of the Royal Academy of History.

And today, with great joy, we celebrate the excellence of a renowned Italian professor who has dedicated his life to studying the strong and deep historical ties between Spain and Italy, in particular Naples, in the Modern Age. All of Italy, specifically Naples and Sicily, represents a key dimension of the Hispanic trajectory in Europe and the Mediterranean from the Late Middle Ages up to the 19th century. This represents more than half a millennium of intertwined brotherly relations, without the full knowledge of which we cannot correctly understand the history of our two great nations. And I want to say, with true pride, that, in that Spanish-Neapolitan connection, the presence and work of the different Spanish Orders of Santiago, Calatrava, Alcántara and Montesa were fruitful and permanent. I am not referring merely to specific facts, such as the fact that the Orders had Commanders in Italy, or that most of the Viceroys in Naples and Sicily were Knights of the Spanish Orders, but much more, since the link between Naples and the Orders was so great, that there was even a period, in the time of Ferdinand the Catholico, where more Knights of the Orders were armed in Naples, than in the rest of the territories of the Hispanic monarchy.

It was a very productive giving and receiving that, after the Middle Ages, gained strength, again thanks to the Mediterranean, with Aragonese ships. Later in Naples a Renaissance would take shape, a southern renaissance splendidly captured in the exhibition entitled “Another Renaissance. Spanish artists in Naples at the beginning of the Cinquecento”. This exhibition has been jointly organized by the Prado and Capodimonte Museums, where it is still open.

I would like to highlight the legacy of King Carlos of Bourbon, that is, Carlos VII of Naples, V of Sicily and III of Spain. Son of an Italian, Elizabeth Farnese, and Felipe V, King of Spain. He tried to reform and modernize the kingdom, unifying it and, along with his wife Maria Amalia of Saxony, winning the affection of its citizens. He inaugurated on his own a national kingdom that would continue in fruitful dialogue with Madrid for many decades. He wanted to give Naples the appearance that a Royal Court should have. Improving public buildings and attending to the health and well-being of citizens. An example of this is the construction and launching of the Royal Hostel for the Poor, destined to welcome the most needy of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Royal residences were also built in accordance with the fashion that had prevailed since the construction of Versailles, such as the Royal Palace of Caserta, one of the largest and most beautiful royal palaces in the world, or the Teatro de San Carlos, for opera performances, surrounding himself with the best architects, painters, sculptors, lawyers and advisers. These artists came to Spain and spread the Italian and Neapolitan Renaissance there.

In Spain the Neapolitan influence penetrated deeply through our great King Carlos III and his illustrious Court. His years as King of the Two Sicilies gave him valuable experience for his next role as King of Spain, where he made important reforms without breaking the social, political and economic order, supported by a team of ministers and associates who achieved years of growth and development. The city of Naples and its Kingdom would always maintain a Hispanic imprint: in urban planning, in language, customs, laws, street names, squares, neighbourhoods, fountains, fortresses and palaces.

Professor Don Giovanni Muto, with his scholarship, recovers this story. His research is an essential reference for an understanding of this period. Thank you very much, Professor, for making your contribution with such skill and excellence.

Your Majesty, Dear friends, Thank you very much.”