1492–1833

Habsburg and Bourbon Spain

On 2 January 1492 Boabdil handed Granada to the Catholic Monarchs, and al-Andalus came to an end. Spain then lived its Golden Age under the Habsburgs, and in 1700 the Bourbons came to the throne with Philip V.

In 1561 Philip II settled the court in Madrid, the monarchy's first permanent capital. Kings, nobles and the Church paid for palaces, cathedrals, monasteries, universities, squares and bridges, from the Plateresque and the Renaissance to the Baroque and, under the Bourbons, Neoclassicism.

On the southern coast, a chain of watchtowers that Charles I devised and Philip II mostly built gave warning of Barbary pirate landings.

An era that ends in 1833, when Javier de Burgos divided the kingdom into the provinces that, almost unchanged, are still on the map today.

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by Phantazein

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