British Hispanism, Enlightenment Spain, and the Transatlantic Dimensions of Valdeflores
British and American scholarship has long shown a deep interest in Spanish culture in all its dimensions, with particular attention to the eighteenth century and the figure of Luis José Velázquez de Velasco, Marquis of Valdeflores . Among the many scholars who have contributed to this field, a few stand out:
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Philip Deacon – leading British Hispanist, specialist in Valdeflores and eighteenth-century Castilian poetry; author of The Eighteenth-Century Origin of Spanish Literary History and Spain and Enlightenment.
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Nigel Glendinning (1929–2013) – authority on the Enlightenment and Goya; author of A Literary History of Spain: The Eighteenth Century and Goya and His Critics; also wrote on Valdeflores.
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Russell P. Sebold (1928–2014) – American hispanist, foremost authority on eighteenth-century Spanish literature, especially poetry.
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George Ticknor (1791–1871) – Harvard scholar; author of History of Spanish Literature (1849), the first comprehensive history of Spanish literature in English, acknowledging Valdeflores as a pioneer of literary historiography.
These studies primarily examine Valdeflores in connection with the literary culture of his time —his role in major movements, his travels across Spain, his contributions as historian, antiquarian, epigraphist, numismatist, Latinist, and his involvement in the Real Academia de la Historia and the Academia del Buen Gusto. Naturally, these scholars came from highly prestigious universities in the United Kingdom and the United States, producing excellent and well-structured articles. However, as expected, they are specialized studies, focusing on specific areas and relying on consolidated academic literature.
What remains underexplored is that Valdeflores, as one of Spain’s major Enlightenment intellectuals, requires a fuller reassessment —one that accounts for his wider familial, social, and transnational networks.
The Wittemberg Legacy in Andalusia: New Research Carried Out in Spain
Through the exploration of primary sources and previously unknown documents, it has been revealed that, through his mother, Valdeflores descended from Juan Wittemberg Dreyers, a German who settled in Málaga in the seventeenth century and founded Wittemberg & Co., a maritime company active through his descendants until the late eighteenth century, operating routes across the Baltic, the Low Countries, France, England, and Belgium.
The Wittembergs became exceptionally wealthy, integrating into local elites, holding municipal offices, and forging ties with noble houses such as the Marquisate of Isla Hermosa and the Marquisate of Valdeflores. Some women of the clan married into powerful lineages, several of whose descendants eventually rose to the rank of Grandees of Spain —thus reaching the very pinnacle of the Spanish noble hierarchy. Remarkable, for example, is the familial connection of the Wittemberg family to the Count of Floridablanca, the chief minister to Charles III and one of the most influential figures of that period. This was an extraordinary achievement for a family of foreign origin that had arrived in Spain virtually unknown.
Valdeflores not only had dozens of cousins and uncles in this family with whom he corresponded and exchanged cultural viewpoints, but his siblings were also closely related to the Wittembergs. His niece, the Marchioness of Valdeflores, held seventeen mayorazgos (entailed estates) in Andalusia and wielded considerable influence during the Restoration.
Despite considerable economic, political, and noble prominence, the Wittembergs developed no enduring heroic dimension—save for isolated episodes in the careers of certain seafarers—and thus slipped into historical oblivion by the mid-nineteenth century, surviving only in archival records. The striking exception is Valdeflores himself, whose resonant cultural legacy in many ways compensates for the family’s broader disappearance from historical memory.
Transatlantic Links: The Lisperguer Wittemberg Connection
In seeking noble recognition, the Wittembergs amassed extensive genealogical documentation, including certifications by heralds such as Juan Alfonso de Guerra y Sandoval. These reveal kinship with the Lisperguer (Lisperguer Wittemberg) family. Under Emperor Charles V, Pedro Lisperguer Wittemberg was dispatched to the conquest of Peru and Chile despite restrictions on foreign settlers. Meanwhile, the other branch of the family secured establishment in Spain, with documented support from Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor.
The Lisperguers flourished especially in Chile, with military service in the Arauco Wars, prominent roles in politics, governance, and the Church; their women often married judges, consolidating power. In Peru they allied with noble houses; in Argentina, though to a lesser extent, they secured political and aristocratic influence. The most notorious descendant was Catalina de los Ríos Lisperguer, “La Quintrala”—an encomendera infamous for her cruelty towards Indigenous people. Far from a heroic figure, she nonetheless achieved lasting notoriety. Her life has inspired hundreds of academic works, doctoral theses, novels, plays, films, and even operas. Her figure remains central in debates on gender, power, colonial violence, and the cultural imagination of Latin America.
Why This Matters for British Hispanists
Through Valdeflores one can trace a broader Euro-Atlantic reality that transcends the individual scholar: the Habsburg connections, the triangular nexus of Germany, Spain, and the Americas, and the cultural interplay across early modern Europe and the New World. After leaving Worms in 1545, Pedro Lisperguer travelled for six months with Charles V through southern Germany and the Low Countries; he then spent a decade in Andalusia as equerry to the Counts of Feria, and accompanied the young Prince Philip (later Philip II) to England for seven months, participating in key events of the period.
This hidden transnational dimension—linking Enlightenment Spain, European courts, and the colonial world—offers British scholarship fertile ground for further research, interpretation, and interdisciplinary exploration in literature, history, and cultural studies, opening opportunities for infinite resonances in universal history.
Reviews and Further Reading
THE LISPERGUER VOLUMES: LEGACY, REVIEWS AND PERSPECTIVES
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