ABSTRACT
The presence of the Spanish military orders in Italy is a field of research that still requires exhaustive investigation (see Fig. 21.1). 1 Existing studies have focused mainly on reconstructing the history of a few specific properties, and there is no comprehensive catalogue of the houses or a reconstruction of the development and organization of these orders in the Peninsula, Sicily and Sardinia during the Middle Ages. Moreover, evidence from Italian primary sources has rarely been set alongside documents from the Spanish archives. This paper offers some initial remarks on the presence of the Spanish military orders in Italy, concentrating on the kind of patronage they enjoyed and the particular character and development of their presence. As this research has not long started, only preliminary results can be presented here. These first findings, however, can serve to illustrate possible lines of future research and emphasize the original and valuable contribution that a comprehensive investigation into this subject will make to military orders’ studies.
