As the year comes to an end, I would like to extend my warmest wishes to all who follow and support my work. This season invites reflection, gratitude, and a renewed sense of purpose. May these days bring calm, clarity, and meaningful moments, and may the coming year open new paths for learning, collaboration, and creativity.
Merry Christmas and my very best wishes for the year ahead.
I am honoured to share that I have been elected as a Member of the Royal Historical Society (RHS) of the United Kingdom. The Council confirmed my election at its meeting on 21 November 2025, and I am deeply grateful for this recognition and for the warm welcome extended by the Society.
Founded in 1868, the Royal Historical Society (RHS) is the UK’s foremost society working for historians and history, supporting research, education, and public engagement across the discipline.
Election to Membership is based on a demonstrated contribution to historical research and the advancement of the field. This appointment represents a meaningful milestone in my academic trajectory and strengthens my commitment to historical scholarship and the preservation of cultural heritage.
Find out more here:
Mario Santos-Lopez
Member of the Royal Historical Society
From November 27 to December 4, my book Corte e Imagen: la Monarquia Hispánica a través del retrato will be available at a special discounted price on both Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.
On Amazon.com:
On Amazon.co.uk:
Don’t miss this limited-time Kindle Countdown Deal!
Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FTW74T6T
Amazon.co.uk: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FTW74T6T
“Disponible en Kindle para lectores de todo el mundo. ¡Aprovecha esta oferta especial!”
The previous edition of Corte e imagen: la Monarquía Hispánica a través del retrato (ISBN 9798267624008) is now out of print and no longer available for purchase. A revised edition is now available under ISBN 9798269673523 (Paperback), featuring updated content and editorial improvements.
The book is offered in the following formats as well:
Available on Amazon
Thank you for your continued interest in historical research and publication.
La edición del libro Corte e imagen: la Monarquía Hispánica a través del retrato con ISBN 9798267624008 ha sido descatalogada y ya no está disponible para la venta. Una nueva revisión del contenido está ahora disponible con el ISBN 9798269673523 (tapa blanda), incorporando mejoras editoriales y actualizaciones historiográficas.
El libro también puede adquirirse en los siguientes formatos:
Disponible en Amazon
Gracias por vuestro interés y apoyo continuo a la investigación histórica.
Court and Image: The Spanish Monarchy through Portraiture (Spanish version) is a work born of a methodological conviction: the court portrait is not merely art, but a language of state. In this book, I offer a journey through the use of portraiture as a political, symbolic, and diplomatic tool in seventeenth-century Europe, with particular attention to its role in projecting power and dynastic legitimacy.
Through documented episodes and visual analysis, I examine how the Spanish Monarchy orchestrated a network of royal images that linked Madrid, Vienna, Paris, London, and Brussels. From miniatures exchanged in marriage negotiations to official portraits that crossed borders as gestures of reconciliation or dynastic affirmation, portraiture emerges as a representational device that forged alliances, narrated genealogies, and sustained the image of a monarchy painted to govern.
The work highlights key figures such as Velázquez, Rubens, and Van Dyck, whose brushstrokes not only shaped faces but also crafted narratives of power. Visual analysis is interwoven with diplomatic history and courtly culture, proposing that the royal image is also archive, testimony, and strategy.
This book is intended for art historians, scholars of diplomacy, and readers passionate about the visual culture of early modern Europe. In its pages, history is portrayed, preserved, and transmitted.
**This entry forms part of my editorial series Art and Power, focused on visual culture, dynastic representation, and pictorial diplomacy. The full technical record is available in the Books section.**
The Lineage and the Lance: History of the Duque Lineage (Spanish version) was my first book, marking the beginning of a research trajectory focused on noble genealogy as a vehicle for historical memory. This study offers a rigorously documented reconstruction of the Duque lineage — a Spanish noble house whose memory remains deeply rooted in local culture through emblems, oral traditions, and scattered archival materials.
The work combines genealogical analysis, heraldry, and social history, spanning from the late Middle Ages to the present day. Drawing on primary sources and noble archives, I trace the evolution of the lineage within the broader context of Castile’s historical transformations, exploring its territorial affiliations, symbols of identity, and involvement in institutional life.
Beyond the specific case, the volume articulates a narrative that transcends the familial sphere and engages with the intangible heritage of the Spanish nobility. It reclaims lineage as a symbolic device, a structure of legitimacy, and an expression of historical continuity.
This work belongs to the tradition of applied research in genealogical and heritage history, and proposes a methodological model that can be replicated in other academically oriented studies. My aim was to offer a practical tool for those wishing to explore lineage studies from a rigorous, sensitive, and symbolically aware perspective.
**This entry forms part of my editorial series Intangible Heritage, focused on genealogy, visual culture, and dynastic legitimacy. The full technical record is available in the Books section**
Mario Santos López 