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Here you will find the Biographies and History conferences that we held in collaboration with Carmen Iglesias, the Royal Academy of History and the Cultural Foundation of the Spanish Nobility.
The 2026 cycle continues the theme begun in the 2025 cycle, further exploring key figures in Spanish history who lived through turbulent times during the 16th and 17th centuries.
Los tres reinados de Cisneros
Jaime Olmedo, Rector of Camilo José Cela University and a member of the Royal Academy of History, explores the life of Saint John of the Cross—one of the great spiritual, literary, and intellectual figures of the Golden Age—in *San Juan de la Cruz: una vida entre frentes y fronteras* (Saint John of the Cross: A Life Between Fronts and Borders).
Elvira Roca
Ina Carbajo, a professor at the Complutense University of Madrid, examines the history of executioners between the 17th and 19th centuries—a profession defined by marginalization, social stigma, and a direct link to the criminal justice system of the era. She explores this subject in her work "Los verdugos (s. XVII-XIX): riesgos de un oficio" (Executioners [17th–19th Centuries]: Risks of a Profession).
Fernando Iwasaki
Carmen Sanz Ayán, Professor of Early Modern History at the Complutense University of Madrid and a member of the Royal Academy of History, analyzes the figure of Nicolao Grimaldo—one of the major financiers of Philip II’s reign—in "Unknown and Powerful: Nicolao Grimaldo, Banker to Philip II."
Jaime Olmedo
Carmen Iglesias, Director of the Royal Academy of History and a member of the Royal Spanish Academy, brings back into focus the figure of María Francisca de Sales Portocarrero y Zúñiga, 6th Countess of Montijo—one of the most significant enlightened women of 18th-century Spain—in "Mujeres ilustradas: María Francisca de Sales Portocarrero y Zúñiga, VI condesa de Montijo (1754–1808)".
previous lectures
On our Youtube channel you can see the conferences held in the following years:
- 2020: ‘The first globalization. America and the oceans. Adventure and science routes (from the 16th to the 18th century)’.
- 2021: ‘America and the oceans. Century XVIII’.
- 2022: ‘America, Spain and independence: 200 years of a complex process’.
- 2023: ‘A crown of letters: books and authors of the Hispanic Monarchy’.
- 2024: ‘Cisneros and the arrival of modernity’.
- 2025: “Protagonists of a New Era (16th–17th Centuries). Figures at Risk: Chance and Necessity”