Royal Favourites’ Heraldry as Cultural Artefact. Rhetorical Visions of Excellence and Greatness during the seventeenth century

Abstract

This article analyses the heraldic identification of the favouritism of Lerma and Olivares as a communication form developed around the idea of excellence. We take the coat of arms both as a family shield and as a distinctive reality of excellence. We interpret the heraldic component of the favourites Lerma and Olivares as a device with a specific narrative language of pre-eminence over any other circumstance. The seventeenth century was an especially dense period as regards to the use of heraldry as a discursive experience of the nobility that in the case of Lerma and above all Olivares helped to construct a heroic image that overcame the temporal imperative.