ABSTRACT
This study offers a response to some of Benedetto Croce’s work on the effects of the Spanish presence in early modern Naples.1 According to one of his main arguments, by the middle of the sixteenth century contemporaries had come to perceive the national character of Spaniards and Neapolitans as identical.2 The wider context of this perception was the simplified and stereotyped image of Iberians, which started to crystallize following the meteoric ascendancy of Spain to the status of the world superpower during Charles V’s times (1519-1556), and the exposure of Spaniards to a great variety of peoples and cultures across the globe. Thousands of denigrating pages describing the Spanish character fuelled Hispanophobic sentiments among Spain’s enemies, but what matters for us is the association of Neapolitans with this negative image.3 The point is reflected well in the words of a Spanish ambassador to Rome, who labelled Neapolitan nobles ‘arrogant, and with a reverential and ceremonious behaviour; they appear Spaniards’.4 Croce’s investigations into the Neapolitan character have been followed up by many other scholars, and his suggestion of a Neapolitan character moulded on Spanish honorific values has been both defended and dismissed.5
