[xi]The primary and secondary research for this volume has been undertaken at a number of libraries and archives. In Madrid, I have used the Biblioteca Nacional, the libraries of the Casa Velázquez of the Ciudad Universitaria and of the Real Academia de la Historia. I have also sifted the records of the Archivo Histórico Nacional in Madrid, the Archivo de la Corona de Aragón in Barcelona, and assorted municipal archives in Spain. I have also used the British Library in London and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the Harvard University Libraries, the Library of Congress, the University of Virginia Alderman Library and the Yale University Sterling Library. I owe a great debt of gratitude to the staffs of all of these libraries and archives, as well as to the Interlibrary Loan staff of the Dinand Library of the College of the Holy Cross. Moreover, I received considerable support from the Committee on Professional Standards at Holy Cross, which awarded me three Batchelor (Ford) Summer Fellowships and one Faculty Semester Fellowship to advance the research and writing of the final product. The Council for the International Exchange of Scholars, in coordination with the Comité Conjunto Hispano Norteamericano para Asuntos Educativos y Culturales (a Fulbright-related committee of American and Spanish scholars based in Madrid), granted me an indispensable fellowship for six months of study in Spain, and the College of the Holy Cross supported me with two sabbatical leaves. The Holy Cross Committee on Research and Publication gave me numerous small research and travel grants. The present study would have been delayed interminably without this assistance, and I am most grateful.

[xii ]There are also persons to whom I am especially indebted. My former teacher, Charles Julian Bishko, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Virginia, has read the entire typescript of this book with his customary diligence and has offered many helpful suggestions. To him I dedicate the work. I have also benefited from the stylistic and scholarly advice of my colleague in Interdisciplinary Studies courses at Holy Cross,Professor Ellen Kosmer of Worcester State College, who brings her editing skills and the perspective of a very perceptive art historian to this effort. Also, Father Joseph Pomeroy, S. J. and the staff of the Holy Cross Data Processing Center, gave frequent assistance while permitting me to compose this book on their Digital Vax computer and store its several drafts in the computer memory. There is also the special debt to my wife Trudy who stayed up many nights trying to dissolve my unintended barriers of communication, and who endured my absences for research and writing at inconvenient times. None of these considerate persons is responsible for any errors which lie herein. They are my own property.