Juana de Castilla : Conspiración, locura y poder en la Castilla renacentista

Relegated for centuries to the myth of her supposed madness, Joanna I of Castile was in reality one of the most decisive and maligned political figures of the European Renaissance. Daughter of the Catholic Monarchs, wife of Philip the Handsome, and mother of Charles I, she inherited the Kingdom of Castile from Isabella the Catholic and was its de jure queen for almost four decades, at a pivotal moment in the construction of the Hispanic Monarchy. In this definitive biography, Eduardo Juárez Valero rigorously and precisely reconstructs Joanna's true trajectory, dismantling the clichés that have reduced her to a passive figure. Based on in-depth research and access to previously unpublished documents, the author reveals a sovereign fully aware of her role, capable of governing and understanding the political implications of her inheritance, yet sidelined from power by the interests of those around her. From the court of Flanders to her prolonged confinement in Tordesillas, encompassing the death of Isabella I of Castile, the succession crisis in Castile, the power struggles between Ferdinand II of Aragon and Philip the Handsome, the Revolt of the Comuneros, and the rise of Charles I, this book restores Joanna of Castile to her true political, cultural, and human dimension: that of a sovereign educated in the liberal arts and the humanist culture of her time. An essential work for understanding the birth of the modern state and the history of a queen denied the throne simply for being a woman.