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El Poder de la Imagen. Ideas y funciones de las representaciones artísticas

Keywords: 15th century, Álvaro de Luna, Crown of Castile, Funerary chapels, Nobility.

The Chapel of Saint James, built in the Cathedral of Toledo during the fifteenth century to become the burial place of Alvaro de Luna and his lineage, is one of the leading exponents of Spanish Late Gothic. The construction process had two phases: during the life of the Constable, when he took charge of the work, and a few decades after the tragic death of the former Favorite, when the Chapel elements were completed and his body transferred under the responsibility of his daughter, María de Luna y Pimentel, II Duchess of the Infantado. As the building occurred at different moments of a broad process of transformations, the structure also indicates changes in the representations and strategies used by the noblemen within conflicts of intra-nobility nature. The objective of this paper is analyze the Chapel of Saint James, understanding it as a complex form of political action, whose examination may contribute to the comprehension of the transformations that marked the fifteenth century in Castile, as the conflicts that involved the representation of groups and/or individuals were active agents of the changes that engendered the consolidation of high-nobility ideology.