usually ironically, against the events of Catherine's life. But for her, I suspect, the fruit which she had seen growing in the gardens of the Alhambra came, more than anything else, simply to represent home.
2. Education for power
C atherine belonged to a large family as her parents had five children who survived infancy. The eldest, named Isabella after her mother, was born within a year of the marriage. Then there was a lengthy gap, occasioned in part by miscarriages possibly triggered by the Queen's active service in the wars against the Moors. At last, a son, Juan, was born in 1478, followed in quick succession by three younger children, all girls: Juana, Maria and finally Catherine, the baby of the family.
Juan, as heir, was the apple of his parents' eye. But Catherine, as the youngest, was something of a favourite too. Ferdinand proclaimed that he loved her 'entirely': 'for ever', he explained, 'she hath loved me better than any of my other children'. For the Queen, actions spoke louder than words, and in 1489, when Catherine was only three, Isabella held her up in public to watch a ceremonial bull-fight. 1
Nor was this an isolated gesture, since Isabella was as hands-on as a parent as she was at everything else. She kept her daughters with her even on campaign and in 1491, for instance, at the siege of Granada, Catherine, her mother and sisters had to flee in the night when the Queen's tent caught fire. More importantly, Isabella also supervised the girls' education herself. She has been much praised – especially in this feminist age – for giving them almost as academically serious an education as their brother. But, as we shall see, there were some curious gaps in their training which in time were to cost Catherine dear.
* * *
Isabella's own education had been entirely conventional. She had been taught the rudiments of the Faith, housewifely skills and how to read and write Spanish. All these, especially the first, she passed on to her daughters. But, as an adult sovereign, she had also learned some Latin. There were practical reasons for this, since Latin was the prime language of law, government and, above all, of the diplomacy which she and Ferdinand were weaving across the courts of Europe like a spider's web. But Isabella, like Ferdinand, also had a larger vision and it seems certain that she saw the New Learning (as the reformed Classical curriculum came to be known) in the same light as the New World, as a territory to be conquered for her family and her Faith. And her daughters were to share in this inheritance as much as her son.
Isabella was greatly aided in her efforts by the close relations between Spain and Italy, which were the fountainhead of the New Learning. Leading Italian Humanists, as exponents of the new studies were known, flocked to Spain and some of the best were retained in Isabella's service to educate her children. The most important was Pietro Martire d'Anghierra, known in English as Peter Martyr. His specific brief lay in the re-education of the nobility and the royal children above all. 'I was the literary foster-father of almost all the princes, and of all the princesses of Spain,' he boasted. Catherine's personal tutors, however, were two brothers: Antonio Geraldini and, after his death, his younger sibling, Alessandro.
Under their supervision, Catherine embarked on a formidable course of Latin literature. But it was not by the Pagan authors familiar to us. This is because they were considered risqué or, in the case of the poets, downright corrupting. So Catherine's direct acquaintance with works of the Golden Age of the Roman Republic and Empire was limited: to the moralists, including Seneca, and to the historians, who were also studied as a source of moral example. Otherwise, her reading was drawn largely from the first centuries of the Christian world: the Christian Latin poets, Prudentius and Juventus, and the Latin Fathers of the
2. Education for power
C atherine belonged to a large family as her parents had five children who survived infancy. The eldest, named Isabella after her mother, was born within a year of the marriage. Then there was a lengthy gap, occasioned in part by miscarriages possibly triggered by the Queen's active service in the wars against the Moors. At last, a son, Juan, was born in 1478, followed in quick succession by three younger children, all girls: Juana, Maria and finally Catherine, the baby of the family.
Juan, as heir, was the apple of his parents' eye. But Catherine, as the youngest, was something of a favourite too. Ferdinand proclaimed that he loved her 'entirely': 'for ever', he explained, 'she hath loved me better than any of my other children'. For the Queen, actions spoke louder than words, and in 1489, when Catherine was only three, Isabella held her up in public to watch a ceremonial bull-fight. 1
Nor was this an isolated gesture, since Isabella was as hands-on as a parent as she was at everything else. She kept her daughters with her even on campaign and in 1491, for instance, at the siege of Granada, Catherine, her mother and sisters had to flee in the night when the Queen's tent caught fire. More importantly, Isabella also supervised the girls' education herself. She has been much praised – especially in this feminist age – for giving them almost as academically serious an education as their brother. But, as we shall see, there were some curious gaps in their training which in time were to cost Catherine dear.
* * *
Isabella's own education had been entirely conventional. She had been taught the rudiments of the Faith, housewifely skills and how to read and write Spanish. All these, especially the first, she passed on to her daughters. But, as an adult sovereign, she had also learned some Latin. There were practical reasons for this, since Latin was the prime language of law, government and, above all, of the diplomacy which she and Ferdinand were weaving across the courts of Europe like a spider's web. But Isabella, like Ferdinand, also had a larger vision and it seems certain that she saw the New Learning (as the reformed Classical curriculum came to be known) in the same light as the New World, as a territory to be conquered for her family and her Faith. And her daughters were to share in this inheritance as much as her son.
Isabella was greatly aided in her efforts by the close relations between Spain and Italy, which were the fountainhead of the New Learning. Leading Italian Humanists, as exponents of the new studies were known, flocked to Spain and some of the best were retained in Isabella's service to educate her children. The most important was Pietro Martire d'Anghierra, known in English as Peter Martyr. His specific brief lay in the re-education of the nobility and the royal children above all. 'I was the literary foster-father of almost all the princes, and of all the princesses of Spain,' he boasted. Catherine's personal tutors, however, were two brothers: Antonio Geraldini and, after his death, his younger sibling, Alessandro.
Under their supervision, Catherine embarked on a formidable course of Latin literature. But it was not by the Pagan authors familiar to us. This is because they were considered risqué or, in the case of the poets, downright corrupting. So Catherine's direct acquaintance with works of the Golden Age of the Roman Republic and Empire was limited: to the moralists, including Seneca, and to the historians, who were also studied as a source of moral example. Otherwise, her reading was drawn largely from the first centuries of the Christian world: the Christian Latin poets, Prudentius and Juventus, and the Latin Fathers of the
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