ABSTRACT
The phase of the Catholic Reform began in 1400s, on the basis of earlier movements such as the Devotio Moderna, which began in the Low Countries in 1300s. The Tridentine phase of reform exactly parallels the Spanish cultural period called the Siglo de Oro, or Spanish Golden Age, not to mention the colonization of Latin America. It is to be expected that Hispanic art of this period should express the reformers' concerns in an immediate, even precocious way. Spanish reformed Catholicism found leadership in the Archbishops of Toledo, "Primates of Spain," particularly in the person of Cardinal Francisco Jimenez de Cisneros, the Franciscan friar and Catholic humanist, who was archbishop from 1495. However, is the fact that in many instances, such as the works of Juan de Juanes and Luis de Morales analyzed, Spanish artists in fact anticipated the type of art sought by the Church fathers at Trent and their subsequent interpreters.
