FERDINAND AND ISABELLA: THE CATHOLIC SOVEREIGNS 43
interests. To their court they summoned Italian hu-
manists like Alessandro Geraldini, Lucio Marineo
Siculo, and Peter Martyr de Anghera to tutor their
children and the sons of the greatest houses of Cas-
tile. Enlightened prelates like Archbishop Jiménez
de Cisneros founded new schools and universities
to rival the famed University of Salamanca. Castile
itself produced some distinguished practitioners
of the new learning, such as Antonio de Nebrija,
grammarian, historian, and lexicographer, who in
1492 published and presented to Isabella a Castil-
ian grammar—the fi rst grammar of any modern
European language. The vitality of the Castilian
language and life found expression in a realistic
masterpiece: the novel La Celestina (1499) by Fer-
nando de Rojas. Meanwhile, Castilian architecture
and sculpture developed its own style, known as
plateresque, an ornamental blend of Islamic ara-
besques, fl owers, foliage, and Renaissance motifs.
FOREIGN POLICY
The restoration of domestic peace enabled the
Sovereigns to turn their attention to questions of
foreign policy. For the Castilian Isabella, the con-
quest of Granada came fi rst. Hardly had their au-
thority been fi rmly restored when the Sovereigns
demanded of the Granadan ruler the tribute paid
by his predecessors to Castile. Abdul Hassan re-
plied that his mints now coined steel, not gold. The
wealth of the Granadan kingdom and its moun-
tainous terrain enabled the Almoravids to hold
out for ten years. But Castile’s superior military
power, especially the formidable new arm of artil-
lery, fi nally broke the Muslim resistance. In January
1492,Granada surrendered to Ferdinand and Isa-
bella, on whom Pope Alexander VI bestowed the
title “The Catholic Sovereigns” in honor of their
crusading piety.
Whereas Isabella’s heart was set on the con-
quest of Granada, Ferdinand, heir to Aragón’s
Mediterranean empire and the traditional rivalry
between France and Aragón, looked eastward
to Aragón’s borders with France and to Italy. He
achieved most of his goals after Isabella’s death in
- Employing an adroit blend of war and di-
plomacy, he obtained the return of two Aragonese
provinces lost to France by previous rulers, the
incorporation of the kingdom of Naples into the
Aragonese empire, and the checkmating of French
designs in Italy. In the course of Ferdinand’s Ital-
ian wars, his commanders, especially the “Great
Captain” Gonzalo de Córdoba, created a new-style
army that was equipped with impressive fi repower
and strong offensive and defensive weapons. The
new system, fi rst tested in Italy, established the
military supremacy of Castile and Aragón in Eu-
rope. Before his death, Ferdinand rounded out his
conquests with the acquisition of Navarre (1512),
which gave the united kingdoms a strongly defen-
sible frontier with France. Although his royal suc-
cessors offi cially continued to govern the sovereign
kingdoms of Castile, Aragón, Navarre, and so on,
their European rivals thereafter increasingly called
this new power emerging from the Iberian Penin-
sula by its Roman name: “Hispania” or Spain.
The Catholic Sovereigns rendered major ser-
vices to their people. They tamed the arrogant no-
bility, defeated the forces of Islam, and united the
feuding Christian kingdoms in the pursuit of com-
mon goals. They encouraged the growth of trade
and industry and showed themselves to be intel-
ligent patrons of learning and the arts. Their pru-
dent diplomacy gave Castile a place among the fi rst
powers of Europe. In the same period, America was
discovered under Castilian auspices, the Caribbean
became a Castillian lake, and by the end of their
reign, the kingdom’s explorers and adventurers
were on the verge of discovering the great Indian
empires of Mexico and Peru. It is not surprising
that the monarchs who presided over such victo-
ries became for succeeding generations the objects
of a national cult and legend.REAPPRAISAL OF FERDINAND AND ISABELLA’S POLICIES
For modern historians, the fame of the Catholic
Sovereigns has lost some of its luster. These his-
torians charge Ferdinand and Isabella with mis-
taken policies that nullifi ed much of the sound
part of their work. One of these errors was a defi -
nite bias in favor of the economic and social inter-
ests of the aristocracy. If the nobility lost most of
its political power under Ferdinand and Isabella,