Infanta Juana of Spain
Daughter of the Emperor Charles V and Isabel of Portugal. Married D. Juan, Prince of Portugal, and was mother of the luck-less King Sebastian. As a widow she returned to rule Spain during the years that Philip spent in England as husband of Queen Mary Tudor.
Don Juan Valera says, "Beautiful and passionate as we cannot doubt her to have been, since she inspired so ardent a devotion in the Prince her husband that he preferred to die rather than leave her ... yet she was so austere and shy that she never consented to show her face," and was heavily veiled when she gave audiences. If any doubted whether they were really addressing her, she would lift her covering, and directly her visitor was satisfied, drop it again. Señor Valera quotes this as a proof that none of the descendants of Joan the Mad were entirely free from the taint of insanity.
Portrait by Sir Antonio More (1512-82) is in the Prado Gallery, Madrid.
Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma
Died 1592, aged forty-eight.
Son of Margaret, Duchess of Parma, half-sister to Don John, after whose death Alexander Farnese took command of the troops in Flanders. Married the Princess Maria of Portugal.
The portrait in the Museo Nazionale, Naples, is ascribed to F. M. Mazzola (called Parmigiano) (1503-40), but dates would seem to make this impossible.