The world of Captain Alatriste
A guided tour, 1566 CE – 1648 CE, in 10 stops.
Spain's Golden Age behind Arturo Pérez-Reverte's swordsman: American silver, war in Flanders and the art of Velázquez, from the Dutch revolt to the peace of 1648.
The stops
Silver from the Indies (1566 CE)
Every year the treasure fleets gathered at Havana and sailed for Seville. Their silver paid for Spain's armies, and never quite enough. A fleet arriving at Sanlúcar is the setting of El oro del rey.
Flanders, the endless war (1568 CE)
The Netherlands rose against Habsburg Spain in 1568, and the war ran for eighty years. Spain marched its tercios to Flanders along the Spanish Road. Diego Alatriste is a veteran of this war, as were thousands of real Spanish soldiers.
Madrid of poets and swordsmen (1605 CE)
The first part of Don Quixote was published in Madrid in 1605. The novels' Madrid is the city of Cervantes, Lope de Vega and Quevedo, a crowded capital of theatres, duels and court intrigue.
Europe catches fire (1618 CE)
In 1618 a revolt in Bohemia started a war that drew in most of Europe. Spain fought beside its Habsburg cousins in Vienna, while the war in Flanders resumed in 1621.
The painter of the king (1623 CE)
Velázquez became court painter to Philip IV in 1623, the year the first Alatriste novel is set. A decade later he painted the surrender of Breda.
The Siege of Breda (1624 CE)
In August 1624 Ambrogio Spínola surrounded the Dutch fortress of Breda. It surrendered on 5 June 1625: one of Spain's last great victories in Flanders, and the subject of El sol de Breda.
A plot in Venice (1627 CE)
Venice was rich, independent and wary of Spain. In El puente de los asesinos, Alatriste is sent there in the late 1620s on a mission as dangerous as any battlefield.
The Lion of the North (1630 CE)
In 1630 Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden landed in Germany and turned the war, until he was killed at Lützen in November 1632. Armies across Europe began copying his methods.
The last stand at Rocroi (1643 CE)
On 19 May 1643, a French army under the 21-year-old Duke of Enghien defeated the Spanish army near Rocroi. It ended the tercios' reputation as unbeatable, and it is where the 2006 film ends.
The end of an age (1648 CE)
In 1648 the Peace of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years' War, and Spain finally recognised the Dutch Republic. Eighty years of war in Flanders were over, and so was Spain's place as Europe's leading power.