Abstract

GUTIERREZ-DE-ARMAS, Judit  and  PRECIOSO-IZQUIERDO, Francisco. Representation of the Noble Family in the Hispanic Atlantic. The Book of the Ponte Family in the Canary Islands (1615-1640). Historelo.rev.hist.reg.local [online]. 2021, vol.13, n.28, pp.68-95.  Epub June 25, 2021. ISSN 2145-132X.  https://doi.org/10.15446/historelo.v13n28.86908.

Over the last two decades, research on forms of representation of family identities have adopted a bottom-up approach to the analysis of social and cultural practices, that is, those strategies mobilized by family members to ensure the transmission of wealth and guarantee their privileges. Among the multiple sources available, family books are particularly valuable to analyse the idea of family as representation in the Early Modern Age. The aim of this article is to increase our understanding about the formation of elite family identities in a very specific region of the Hispanic world: The Canary Islands. The article examines Bartolomé de Ponte’s Libri di famiglia; de Ponte was a wealthy landowner, born in Tenerife but of Genoese extraction. The analysis of his family book explores the main ways in which the identity of this ennobled Italian family in the Canaries was projected, showing that the circulation of people encouraged the transmission of discursive tropes that were assumed and incorporated into the cultural traditions of the Hispanic Atlantic in the 17th century.

Keywords : family identity; material culture; social elite; family book; Bartolomé de Ponte; Canary Islands.

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