Espejos de príncipes y princesas, written by historian Alfredo Alvar, is the first volume of the collection, which reviews the educational foundations of the Spanish Empire and its ruling elite during the reigns of the House of Austria.

Alvar offers the first chronological study of the instructions or mirrors of princes and of the preceptors of infants and daughters, in addition to dealing with Erasmus, grammar, calligraphy, reading primers or the state of the schools, and discovering the importance and influence of the queens in the education of their children..