A Hungarian Orphan’s Rare Courtly Career in the Spanish Monarchy: Martin Somogyi’s Service at the Spanish Habsburg Court in Brussels, 1594–1631
A Hungarian Orphan’s Rare Courtly Career in the Spanish Monarchy: Martin Somogyi’s Service at the Spanish Habsburg Court in Brussels, 1594–1631

Summary/Abstract: Martin Somogyi, a Hungarian orphan and nobleman spent nearly forty years in the service of the Habsburg dynasty, most of that time in Brussels, the capital of the Spanish Netherlands. Viathe Dietrichstein and Cardona families, from his childhood he received extraordinary patronageand was a close confidant of several family members, while providing constant courtly services tothem and to Albert and Isabella, archdukes and governors of the Spanish Netherlands. Ha becamebaron and estate owner in both Flanders and Moravia, and from Brussels he repeatedly went ondiplomatic missions to Central Europe. Having spent thirty years as vice-captain of the governors’personal guards, his patrons including Archduke Albert requested a Spanish Order of Cavalry forhim, but with no effect. By the 1620s, Somogyi’s career reached its peak and his dissatisfaction wasgrowing. Therefore, he requested from Dietrichstein his return to Central Europe, but again withno success. He died without male offspring, and his descendants still live in Belgium. Somogyi isalso known for having sent to Central Europe one of the first issues of the second part of Miguel deCervantes’ Don Quijote de la Mancha.

• Details
• Contents