Galerías de «mujeres ilustres» o el sinuoso camino de la excepción a la norma cotidiana (ss. XV-XVIII).

Abstract

Between the fifteenth and the eighteenth centuries, collections of «illustrious women» were a very widely spread genre all over Europe. Humanistic and courtly in their origins, they were linked to the discourse of women´s «excellence» and they transmitted the values of privilege and aristocratic ethics. At the same time, they showed ambivalent, disturbing and powerful images of «women on top». The fact that its popularity seems to have increased during the eighteenth century and that they took more widespread forms such as articles in the periodicals raises interesting questions about the meanings those images, opposed in many ways to Enlightenment values and attitudes, could have for eighteenth-century men and women. Therefore, an analysis of the different forms and uses of the genre in eighteenth century Spain illustrates the transformations in models of femininity and constitutes an example of cultural appropiation and reshaping of traditional images in a period of change.