Festival interventions in the urban space of Habsburg Madrid *

The painting ascribed to Lorenzo Quirós (Figure 3.1) does not, of course, document a Habsburg, but a much later Bourbon entry into Madrid, that of Charles III in 1760. Yet it provides us with a visual record – one lacking for earlier periods – of how the main thoroughfare of Madrid was transformed for a festival, in this case a royal entry. More than the architectural decorations of colonnades with their statues, more than the mounted soldiers and festively clad spectators, the picture reveals how the draping and covering of the façades of houses with luxury fabrics, tapestries and even paintings dominated the ephemeral decorations. For this reason the covering of façades in early modern Madrid was carried out even on festive occasions of lesser importance and when no ephemeral decorations were erected. In fact, the town council routinely ordered such coverings, obliging house owners to borrow tapestries from other cities if necessary and threatening them with heavy fines if they did not comply. ¹