DISABILITY IN BAROQUE PORTRAITURE:VELAZQUEZ´S JESTERS

Already known in Antiquity, buffoons and jesters were part of the Banquets and courts during the Middle Age.. A source of entertainment, they were also called “men of amusement” they were also called for in banquets and in whichever occasion a loosening of the strictures of court life was needed. Supposed to have a "little conscience and no shame they often managed to make[i] a handsome profit out of their supposed irresponsibility"”. Buffoons and jester appear profusely in the Royal court chronicles from the 11^th to the 13^th century, but they did not reach the spotlight of court life until the 15^th -16^th century, in the historical twilight amidst the end of middle Ages and the brim of modernity. Virtually every European country had famous Jesters as Klaus Narr in Germany or George Buchanan in England, but perhaps in no other place their place like in the Spanish Court of the Habsburgs. According José Moreno Villa

“The Austrians had one dwarf per year of Dynasty reign”

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[i]Welsford, The Fool; His Social and Literary History., p.3

Moreno Villa, J Locos, enanos, negros y niños palaciegos; Gente de placer que tuvieron los Austrias en la corte española desde 1563 a 1700. Editorial Presencia, Mexico.p.37


This obra by Representations of Disability in Spanish Baroque Portraiture:Velazquez´s jesters is licensed under a Creative Commons Reconocimiento 3.0 Estados Unidos License.
Based on a work at caperucitacoja.blogspot.com.

Melania Moscoso