"BATALLAS, DANZAS Y OTROS DUELOS"

500th anniversary of the Siege of Logroño

"In the fifteenth century, the first treatises on fencing appeared in Spain, setting out the rules for handling the sword in duels. Alongside them, dance treatises left precise instructions on how to perform a dance challenge and emerge victorious. Courtly education and etiquette included both disciplines, mastery of which meant social advancement. The Siege of Logroño (1521) brought victory over the troops of Francis I of France and helped to establish a powerful Charles V. Under his reign and that of Philip II, Spain became the foremost world power. And until Ferdinand II, the Habsburg empire gave rise to a flourishing of music and to its dissemination with the rise of the printing presses. A music that portrays, naturally, dances, fencing schools, victories and retreats. Yet beyond the battlefields, the music of the empire was never detached from French influence: the songs of Josquin de Pres, Orlando di Lassus and Nicolas Gombert, and the dances of the courts of the Valois and the Bourbons, are very much present in the compositions of Antonio de Cabezón and Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, and show how no duel on land could prevail over the crossing and exchange of cultural elements in a Europe that was open and eager for novelty."