Charles V’s Valuables in Simancas: Titian’s "Charles V with a Drawn Sword" and Other Items with a Controversial Status

From about 1543 to 1561, the fortress of Simancas (Castile) hosted a significant number of objects that belonged to Charles V of Habsburg (1500–1558). The raison d’être of this accumulation of artifacts and its ties with the social practices of the imperial court deserve closer consideration. The fortress is usually described as an archive where Charles V and Philip II preserved the documents that supported their dynastic rights. However this interpretation, which emphasizes the continuity with the building’s current use as State archive, tends to overshadow the fact that the items stored within its walls were not only papers and parchments, but also jewels, medals, coins, books, minerals, horns, tableware, liturgical tools, paintings by Titian and Mesoamerican, Peruvian or Indian-Portuguese artifacts. This group of objects played a marginal role in the discussion of Charles V’s profile as an owner of valuables. Yet, their description in sixteenth-century sources and their fate during his life cast a new light on his motivation for keeping and gathering such articles.