The Spanish Fury in Frans Hogenberg’s Engravings (1535-1590): "Wandering" Images of the Eighty Years’ War
This paper aims to analyse the construction of the “Spanish Fury” image in engravings during the Eighty Years War. In the focus of this research are engravings by Frans Hogenberg published in 1572-1576 and depicting “the bloodbaths” in Naarden, Zutphen as well as the capture and looting of Antwerp later named “the Spanish Fury.” They were used to illustrate two co-existing phenomena: constructing of the image of “the Spanish Fury” by Hogenberg himself and copying as well as borrowing of certain elements from his engravings in other ones (published to illustrate “the History of Spanish Tyranny in the Netherlands” and tractate “Origin, Beginning, and Continuation of the Dutch Wars” by Pieter Bor). Current research has detected two key topics addressed by this series: the city on fire and the tortures committed by Spanish soldiers (“the tyranny”). The city was considered to be the symbol of the prosperity of the Netherlands that gave a huge potential to contrasting it with its antitype - the razed and looted ruins. The second topic is related with the outrageous scale of atrocities committed by “the godless” (Ger. “gottlosen”) Spaniards associating them with the established perception of the Spanish Inquisition introduced in the Netherlands in the 1520s by Charles V. It is evident that Hogenberg had been consciously constructing his war images. They underwent numerous further constructions and deconstructions serving the needs of the audience and authors, and have become an essential tool of the anti-Spanish propaganda of the Seventeenth century United Provinces.