SPAIN AND CIVILISATION

From the late fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, the Hispanic Monarchy
was one of the largest and most diverse political communities known in history.
At its apogee, it stretched from the Castilian plateau to the high peaks of
the Andes; from the cosmopolitan cities of Seville, Naples, or Mexico City to
Santa Fe and San Francisco; from Brussels to Buenos Aires and from Milan to
Manila. During those centuries, Spain left its imprint across vast continents
and distant oceans contributing in no minor way to the emergence of our globalised
era. This was true not only in an economic sense —the Hispano-American
silver peso transported across the Atlantic and the Pacific by the Spanish
fleets was arguably the first global currency, thus facilitating the creation
of a world economic system— but intellectually and artistically as well. The
most extraordinary cultural exchanges took place in practically every corner
of the Hispanic world, no matter how distant from the metropolis.