The courtly pilgrimage of Luis Gálvez de Montalvo: from Spain to Italy through twenty-eight unpublished letters

Abstract

The pages present and analyse the twenty-eight unpublished holograph letters written by Luis Gálvez de Montalvo (1549-1590) and sent to the Italian Cardinal Ascanio Colonna (1560-1608), plus a draft response from the Cardinal, which are preserved in the Colonna Archive. Reading them is an opportunity to hear the voice of the author of La Fílida in his capacity as a secretary to noblemen, and their analysis from the perspective of historiography on the court enables us to reconstruct his literary and courtly career in Spain and Italy during the last seven years of his life, at the service of Colonna in Spain and Rome from 1583 to 1588, and later in Sicily, at the service of Viceroy Diego Enríquez, Count of Alba de Liste, from spring 1588 until his death in 1590.