Xativa, 8.1, 8.2
Yahya, Sidi
Yebes, Countess of
yugo (Yoke), 7.1, 11.1
Yugoslavia
Zahara, Muslim attack on, 13.1, 13.2
Zaragoza, 1.1, 1.2, 5.1, 6.1, 10.1, 11.1, 18.1, 19.1
Inquisition in
Zoraya (Isabel de Solís, 13.1, 13.2
Zurita, Jerónimo, 6.1, 13.1, 13.2, 13.3, 13.4, 13.5, 18.1, 19.1, 20.1, 23.1
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kirstin Downey is the author of The Woman Behind the New Deal, which was a finalist for the 2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She was one of the writers of the New York Times bestselling Financial Crisis Inquiry Report, and was previously a staff writer at The Washington Post, where she shared in the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings. She was a Nieman fellow at Harvard University in 2001. She is married to Neil Warner Averitt, and together they have five children.
Isabella seated at the foot of the Madonna and child, believed to have been painted in 1520 by one of Isabella’s favorite court painters, Michael Sittow. Colegiata de Santa María la Mayor, Toro, Spain. (Album / Art Resource, NY)
The castle of Arévalo. Isabella and her brother Alfonso spent much of their childhood here, away from the corrupt Segovian court, where their older half brother, King Enrique IV, known as Enrique El Impotente, presided. (Guillermo Pis Gonzalez / Shutterstock.com)
The austere and foreboding castle at La Mota, in Medina del Campo, where Isabella still managed to spend many happy hours as a child, and where she would later hold Cesare Borgia prisoner while he was awaiting trial for murder. (Marques / Shutterstock.com)
The walled city of Ávila, where nobles staged a coup against Enrique by dethroning him in effigy and replacing him with his younger half brother. (Lukasz Janyst / Shutterstock.com)
Engraved portrait of Beatriz de Bobadilla, Isabella’s best friend, at Museo de Historia, Madrid. (Album / Art Resource, NY)
King Enrique IV, Isabella’s older half brother, on a stained-glass window at the Alcázar of Segovia. (Roberaten / Shutterstock.com)
Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, Isabella’s lifelong ally and protector, sculpted by Salvador Amaya. Parque histórico de Navalcarnero, Madrid. (Salvador Amaya)
The Alcázar, Enrique’s palace-fortress home in Segovia, where Isabella prepared herself for taking the throne in a carefully conceived coup d’état. (matthi / Shutterstock.com)
The throne room within the Alcázar, with statues depicting Isabella’s ancestors as far back as Pelayo, the Visigoth credited with beginning the Christian reconquest of the Iberian peninsula in the eighth century. (Anton_Ivanov / Shutterstock.com)
Marriage portrait of Ferdinand and Isabella. Madrigal de las Altas Torres, Augustinian convent, Ávila. (Album / Art Resource, NY)
Portrait of Catherine of Aragon, Isabella’s daughter, by Juan de Flandes. Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid. (Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza / Scala / Art Resource, NY)
Juana of Castile, Isabella’s daughter, and her husband, Philip the Fair. Royal Chapel, Granada. (Album / Art Resource, NY)
One of forty-seven devotional paintings commissioned by Isabella depicting scenes from the life of Christ. In Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes Isabella appears as a bystander in the crowd. Palacio Real, Madrid. (Album / Art Resource, NY)
Another devotional painting commissioned by Isabella, depicting the marriage at Cana. Isabella’s son Prince Juan appears here as the groom, and Margaret of Austria, his wife, as the bride. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. (Copyright © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: Art Resource, NY)
Mehmed the Conquerer, ruler of the expanding Ottoman Empire during Isabella’s formative years. Topkapı Museum, Istanbul. (Gianni Dagli Orti / The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY)
A sixteenth-century depiction of a battle between Turks and Christians, by Venetian painter Jacopo Tintoretto. Prado Museum, Madrid. (Album / Art Resource, NY)
A fifteenth-century painting showing the Virgin Mary standing in protection over Isabella and Ferdinand, their three oldest children, and a group of nuns, as demons dance across the landscape above them, by Diego de la Cruz. Monasterio de las Huelgas, Burgos. (Album / Art Resource, NY)
Seville’s famous Giralda tower. (Ethan Pilla)
The Great Mosque of Córdoba, which had been converted into a cathedral during an earlier phase of the Reconquest, and remained so during Isabella’s time. (Francesco R. Iacomino / Shutterstock.com)
The Alcazaba of Córdoba, the fortress that served as Isabella’s military headquarters during the Reconquest, a war that lasted ten years, with terrible casualties and losses on both sides. (Anibal Trejo / Shutterstock.com)
The Castilian siege of Ronda, which sits on a hilltop surrounded by sheer cliffs, was a major victory for Isabella, particularly because it freed some four hundred Christian slaves who were being held there. (Cornfield / Shutterstock.com)
A depiction of the attempted suicide attack on Beatriz de Bobadilla, one of fifty-four woodcarvings that Isabella commissioned for the choir stall of the great Cathedral of Toledo. (Album / Art Resource, NY)
Queen Isabella’s first major architectural commission, San Juan de los Reyes in Toledo, where the queen ordered the manacles on freed Christian slaves to be mounted on the exterior walls so the ordeal would not be forgotten. (Tony Page / Travelsignposts.com)
The Alhambra of Granada, the Moorish-built palace of the Nasrid dynasty whose walls were inscribed with Arabic poetry and holy writ. (Madrugada Verde / Shutterstock.com)
A painted wood-carving depicting the coerced baptism of the Muslim women of Granada after the Reconquest. (bpk, Berlin / Capilla Real de Granada / Alfredo Dagli Orti / Art Resource, NY)
A nineteenth-century painting depicting Isabella, Ferdinand, and Boabdil at the surrender of Granada, Europe’s first significant triumph against Islam in hundreds of years. (Album / Art Resource, NY)
Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, archbishop of Toledo, confessor to Isabella and later cardinal and regent of Spain, sculpted by Salvador Amaya. Parque histórico de Navalcarnero, Madrid. (Salvador Amaya)
A nineteenth-century painting depicting the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, with Tomás de Torquemada, the chief inquisitor, angrily rebuffing a Jew seeking permission to remain in his homeland. Prado Museum, Madrid. (Copyright of the image Museo Nacional del Prado / Art Resource, NY)
Friar Hernán de Talavera, Isabella’s long-time confessor and archbishop of Granada, a converso who fell victim to the Inquisition after being accused of using his home as a secret temple. San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Spain. (Album / Art Resource, NY)
Rodrigo Borgia, the notorious Pope Alexander VI, who enjoyed the pleasures of both the flesh and the intellect, and who bitterly clashed with Queen Isabella. Museo Diocesano D’Arte Sacro, Orte. (Gianni Dagli Orti / The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY)
Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI, whom Isabella came to view as a public menace. Palazzo Venezia, Rome. (Scala / Art Resource, NY)
The Tempietto by architevct Donato Bramante, a masterpiece of High Renaissance art that was commissioned by Ferdinand and Isabella to commemorate their son, Juan. Vatican Hill, Rome. (Daniele Silva / Shutterstock.com)
Explorer Christopher Columbus, who considered Isabella his most significant patron, sculpted by Salvador Amaya. Parque histórico de Navalcarnero, Madrid. (Salvador Amaya)
A statue commemorating Isabella at the front entrance to the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the Organization of American States. The thirty-five member nations include Argentina, the Bahamas, Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the United States, Uruguay, and Venezuela. (René and Peter van der Krogt, http://statues.vanderkrogt.net)
One of some 370 spectacular tapestries owned by Queen Isabella, The Triumph of Fame depicts the Petrarch poem on glory
and memory. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. (Copyright © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: Art Resource, NY)
ALSO BY KIRSTIN DOWNEY
The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life and Legacy of Frances Perkins—Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, and the Minimum Wage
Isabella: The Warrior Queen Page 69
