Spain

spanish jewelry

First of all, Spanish jewelery has been heavily influenced by Iberian Spain, Portugal and France since the Antiquities period.

 

What is Iberia?

Parts of modern Spain, Portugal and France were once part of Iberia.This includes Andalusia, Galicia, Castile, Leon, Navarre, Aragon and Catalonia.After the fall of Roman rule in the 6th century BC, this part of Europe was a mixture of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, with Christianity in the north and Muslims in the south.

Despite the apparent divisions between these three religions, they are believed to have successfully merged and formed an alliance.Especially in the fields of design, art, and architecture, Christian, Muslim, and Jewish people worked in the same workshops, where their skills were often shared.

While this may seem a utopian view, there are clearly tensions and conflicts between different peoples, and in the sumptuous ornaments, buildings, and artworks produced as a result of their joint efforts. has much evidence of that.

For example, two different pieces of jewelery produced in Iberia dating from the 15th and 16th centuries have very similar aesthetics.In particular, there are fine gold filigree and intricate floral enamel enamel, both with Christian and Muslim religious inscriptions.

Iberia began to disintegrate in the 15th century, where the major powers Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile made international and strong marriages.Isabella, then a devout Catholic of Castile, wanted to strengthen her reign in Iberia and make her country a purely Christian one.However, the Islamic motifs once used never completely disappeared.During this period, the Italian Renaissance and papal power were at their peak, and the decorative styles and painting techniques of the time changed jewellery.It was a fusion of the so-called Italian Renaissance Gothic and Iberian.