J.M. Laboa, Pablo VI, España y el Concilio Vaticano II, Boadilla del Monte, PPC, 2017,

Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 2006

Francesco Ceccarelli and Nadja Aksamija, eds. La Sala Bologna nei Palazzi Vaticani. Architettura, cartografia e potere nell’età di Gregorio XIII (Venice: Marsilio Editori, 2011), for Imago Mundi 65,2 (2013): 312-13.

Networks and Neighbours, 2018

The topic that I am laying out in this brief essay is related to my forthcoming monograph, currently in its final stages, titled: Epistolas Plenas: The Correspondence of the Bishops of Hispania with the Bishops of Rome: Third through Seventh Centuries. There is a growing interest in the extant letters that were exchanged between the bishops of Hispania and the See of Rome from the third to the seventh centuries. In many books and scholarly articles, they have often been mentioned, but almost always in passing and without in-depth analysis of their content. This essay focuses on one example from among eleven letters involving the bishops of Hispania and the See of Rome.

The Catholic Historical Review, 2009

This article examines the extent to which the ceremonial and architectural spaces associated with a titular church became vehicles for the display of the ritual and symbolic aspects of diplomacy in early modern Rome. More specifically, it explores how the European powers tried to overcome the transforming nature of these intrinsically contested spaces by manifesting their temporary possession through specific strategies of representation. In order to do so, this article focuses on the case of the titular churches of the cardinals of the Spanish monarchy. Following an overview of the continuities and circumstances that influenced the allocation of titular churches to Spanish crown cardinals, this article concentrates on the possesso of Sant’Anastasia al Palatino. Because Cardinal Bernardo de Sandoval y Rojas did not travel to Rome to receive his cardinal’s hat, the ceremony by which he took possession of his new titular church took place by proxy. This article argues that the rite of possesso by proxy validated the patronage of the Spanish diplomatic network over Sant’Anastasia, while testifying to the mobilization of titular churches within the ritual diplomacy at the papal court.

Mediaevistik, 2022

"Iberia Pontificia sive repertorivm privilegiorvm et litterarvm a romanis pontificibvs ante annvm MCLXXXXIII, ed. Nicolaus Herbers. Hispaniae et Portugalliae ecclesiis monasteriis civitatibus singvlisque personis concessorvm, vol. VII, Hispania romana et visigothica, ed. Catharina Knie, Sabina Panzram, Lavrentivs Livorsi, Rochus Selvaggi, and Waldemarus Könighaus. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2022, 114 pp, 3 b/w maps, "Mediaevistik, Volume 35, Number 1, 2022, pp. 423-426(4) The publication of new sources is always an excellent contribution to Historical Studies, and in this case, about late antique and medieval Iberia. For this south-western part of Europe, since the 1700s scholars have made great efforts to publish ecclesiastical sources, the principal documents during the Middle Ages. This new book re­presents a big step forward to shed light on a polemic period, full of political and religious changes in the transition from Roman imperial authority into early medieval kingdoms. The rise of the pope and bishops as central figures in these western Euro­pean territories was significant. This book is a compendium of summarized documents from the papal chancellery to Hispanic authorities (Kings, bishops, abbots, counts) during the late antiquity to the early Middle Ages (the first eight centuries). All the documents have been previously published, but in this new edition, the principal contribution is the crucial critical bibliography.

Agostino Vespucci’s De situ, longitudine, forma et divisione totius Hispaniae libellus represents one of the first, most thorough and lively Renaissance descriptions of Iberia. Combining the genres of chorography, travel literature and the diplomatic report, the book deals with the country’s geography, ethnography, recent history and Roman antiquities, merging the past with the present and having recourse to both literary sources and the author’s own investigations. As Vespucci’s only extant literary work, it sheds light on his humanist activity and political ideas, and it allows us to assess the influence that figures such as Poliziano and Machiavelli exercised on him. The manuscript treatise, which was dedicated and presented to Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici (later Pope Clement VII) in 1520, is edited here for the first time.