Between Italy and Spain: cultural interchange in the Roman career of Sebastiano del Piombo

High Renaissance Rome has been envisioned as hermetic – or at least as being influential only in the Italian peninsula, until the traumatic effects of the Sack of 1527 dispersed throughout Europe the community of artists gathered there. In contrast to this traditionally Italo‐centric view, the export trade in artistic ideas, if not in physical objects, was flourishing throughout the period 1492–1534. Given Rome's position as the diplomatic centre of the Italian peninsula and the varied nationalities of the personnel employed in the Curia, the achievements of High Renaissance culture were always easily accessible to foreign patrons. In turn, as the export market flourished, it encouraged other ‘foreigners’ (a definition including both Italians and non‐Italians alike) and the aesthetics of Rome became a standard by which the prestige and culture of an individual could be measured. No particular group of ‘foreigners’ was better placed to exploit this than the Spanish, already established for many years in the south of Italy and now the growing power throughout the whole peninsula. Spaniards, clerical or secular, were a permanent feature of the Roman Court and among the most prominent was the royal ambassador. This post from 1506–21, the apex of the High Renaissance, was held by the Valencian aristocrat, Don Jeronimo de Vich y Vallterra. Vich brought to Valencia not only two works by Sebastiano del Piombo but also designs for an entirely contemporary palazzo . In these activities not only was he consciously emulating the Borgia, who had first brought the Italian Renaissance to Valencia, but in turn his imports provided a model for the succeeding generations of Valencian artists to emulate.