Episode list

The Moorish culture of 'Al-Andalus' (nearly all Iberia) was a staggering height in both European and Mediterranean culture, especially under the breakaway caliphate of Cordoba, a model of inter-cultural fertilization and religious tolerance for Christians and Jews. With its breakdown into petty Muslim kingdoms, the bloody stage was set for seven centuries of gradual reconquest by the Christian crusaders, who would wipe them out and chase all infidels, even converts, from the peninsula after the fall of Nasrid sultanate Granada, which created the Alhambra, yet couldn't part with all its rich legacy.

The Castilian and surrounding heartland of the Spanish realm was the center of royal power and, as Philip II's giant Escorial palace illustrates, the seat of a devout, vastly wealthy Habsburg monarchy's obsession with the purest Catholic faith, which degenerated in an oppressive Inquisition society. Art, mainly patronized by king and cathedrals, was largely devoted to glorifying the church, even more then the dynasty, in a uniquely ornate, gold-burdened style. As the riches of the American colonies failed to keep financing the expensive religious wars, decline was inevitable, yet Felipe IV still dispensed a fortune he no longer could afford to turn Madrid into an imperial capital, while power fell to ambitious courtiers and art finally turned to real life again, instead of the morbid obsession with martyrdom.

The largely mountainous, poorly penetrable northern regions of Spain, notably Catalonia and the Basuqe country, aspire greater autonomy and artistic identity, often by embracing or even taking the lead in in modernity. Furthermore, being the main bloody battle ground in grim periods of (civil) war and Franco's oppressive regime leave visible traces. That goes for most famous painter Pablo Picasso, but even more for architects, notably Miro, and integrated building-art, pinnacling in Gaudi's oeuvre.