**4. Conclusions**

This prophetic frenzy culminated towards the end of the century and shifted focus onto Ferdinand II the Catholic: a plausible New David figure, a Hidden King who was to restore Spain, continue the conquest of Africa and reach the Holy City. The taking of Granada and the expulsion of the Jews in 1492, support for ecclesiastical reform, the annexation of the Kingdom of Naples and military success in north Africa encouraged this association both in Castile and in Aragon, while linking up with the

Pseudo-Isidorian Hispanic tradition of the repair of Spain following the Moorish invasion and the millennialist visions of Arnau de Vilanova and other authors. Zoomorphic symbols, such as the eagle and the bat, were of grea<sup>t</sup> service to royal propaganda. Columbus's arrival in the New World was seen, both by him and by the Court, as a good omen for the establishment of a universal monarchy and the arrival of a millennium of peace and happiness (Milhou 1983; Duran 2011, p. 305, Wittlin 1999; Ryan 2011, pp. 172–80).

In 1515, Diego de Gumiel printed a book entitled *Aureum opus*, which listed the privileges granted by the monarchs of Aragon to the city of Valencia according to the records of the notary Lluís Alanyà (Alanyà 1515). There was hardly a year left before the independent dynasty of the Crown of Aragon would be abolished with the death of Ferdinand II the Catholic: a fitting time to remember the privileges enjoyed by the kingdom's capital and the tale of its conquest, with the first-person testimony of King James I in his chronicle, included at the beginning of the book. James I was an amalgamation of the heroic figure of the conqueror and that of the legislator who had founded a new kingdom and granted it its own legal code through the *furs*. Both facets, that of the vanquisher of the Moors and that of the magnanimous legislator, along with the individual image of the monarch describing the feat in the first person and the institutional figure of the founder of the kingdom, were captured through the only two images printed on the book. On the frontispiece, the monarchy is represented with royal heraldry, meaning the Aragonese coat of arms with pallets below a dragon crest, while on folio 6v, the king figure is riding and gripping a sword, with full armour and a winged dragon crest, in front of a castle on a rock (Serra Desfilis 2018, pp. 144–45); Figure 11. It is no coincidence that the same etching would be used for the novel *Floriseo* later that year and would be recreated by other printers in Seville and Toledo for chivalric romances (Bernal 1516; Guijarro 2002, pp. 205–23). The adventures of the protagonist of *Floriseo* were reminiscent of those captured in the more famous Tirant lo Blanch, which Cervantes considered the best book in the world: a Christian knight freeing the eastern empire and leading the crusade on successful campaigns until reaching India (Rubiera 1993; Hauf 1995, pp. 129–32).

These images, valid for representing both a fictional hero and messianic hopes invested in the monarchy towards 1500, were used subversively in Xàtiva in 1522. Without a specific, individual identity, they left the door open for an adventurer to associate himself with the Hidden King and ride the wave of expectation from all those who aspired to a renewal of the world they knew, to the definitive conversion of the Jews and Muslims, to the reconquest of Jerusalem and to the establishment of the millennium of the eternal gospel. The appearance of the Hidden King was to be linked subversively to the Aragonese dynasty, which held on to those prophetic hopes, but did not need an epiphany in a sacred place, let alone a formal coronation: his thundering image was forged in battles from which he emerged without a scratch, despite taking on fearsome enemies. Only one image of this and other individuals who hoped to take on the same role survived: the negative one broadcast by his enemies. However, his emergence could not remain independent of all the other images that suggested that a king of Aragon could embody that World Emperor heralded by prophets and visionaries, described in books and in the streets, glorified in royal entries and coronations, and captured through images of power and glory.

The monarchs of the Crown of Aragon had used the figurative arts as a means of communication and dynastic propaganda through various media (Serrano 2015a). However, while making them versatile and easy to update over time, the generic nature of many dynastic, triumphal and foundational images probably reduced the control the Court held over them: heraldry, dynastic and individual emblems, and generic and conventional portraits were easily used for exaltation purposes through rhetorical persuasion, but could possibly be adapted to subversive readings as well. These images effortlessly crossed the uncertain, permeable boundaries between popular mentality and Court culture, and the possibility of reproducing and disseminating them through etchings made them even more di fficult to control.

**Figure 11.** King James I in Lluís Alanyà, Aureum Opus regalium privilegiorum civitatis et regni Valentie cum historia christianissimi regis Jacobi ipsius primi conquistatoris, Valencia, 1515, f. 6v (Valencia, Biblioteca Valenciana). Used by permission.

The scarcity and problematic nature of figurative images of royal epiphanies is striking. These events had their own specific setting at the coronation in Zaragoza (Serrano 2012), the royal entry and the pledge to the laws and privileges: ceremonies that stirred up some discomfort among the Aragonese monarchs, as they compromised their authority through institutional consensus and agreement. Imagining the king victorious on the battlefield, against the infidels or any other enemy, and with the aura of a glorious destiny, blessed by divine selection foretold by prophets and visionaries instead of a ceremony of unction and consecration, was a unique artistic route inspired by the Court and promoted by urban oligarchies, but was not free from danger when someone took on these millennialist expectations.

The power vacuum created when Ferdinand II the Catholic died is evident through the subsequent lack of iconographic representation of the Hidden King or Emperor of the Last Days, which appeared in other contemporary European contexts (Guerrini 1997; Vassilieva-Codognet 2012). The figure was unable to survive the harsh oppression of the Revolt of the Germanias and the subsequent 'encubertismo' (Pérez García 2007, pp. 212–22), and Charles V and the humanists of the Imperial Court opted for other kinds of images and values. When the piece by Brother Juan Unay or Joan Alamany, *Tractat de la venguda de l'Antichrist* was printed again in Valencia in 1520, the figure of the New David, the Emperor of the Last Days and now the Hidden King, tailor-made for Ferdinand II the Catholic, did not seem suitable for a distant king who was reluctant to swear an oath to the *furs* of the Kingdom of Valencia, slow to defend his Valencian subjects when they felt in danger of a combined attack from the local Mudejars, Barbary pirates or even the Turk, and alien to the text's strongly antisemitic message (Ramos 1997; Duran and Requesens 1997; Toro 2003). This material, however, could be transformed into subversive ideas in the hands of adventurers from Castile, who were ready to put themselves

forward as heirs of the Trastámara dynasty and the real embodiments of the Hidden King, which is exactly what happened in Xàtiva in 1522 (Pérez García and Catalá 2000).

**Funding:** This research was carried out in the framework of the research project "Memory, Image and Conflict in Renaissance Art and Architecture: Germanias revolt in Valencia"and was funded by the Spanish Government MINECO/AEI/FEDER, UE gran<sup>t</sup> number HAR2017-88707-P.

**Acknowledgments:** The author acknowledges the most valuable support for the English translation of this article offered by Bethan Cunningham. Oscar Calvé offered helpful suggestions and incisive observations.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.
