The second half of the sixteenth century was a violent era. It's difficult to find a more appropriate adjective. It was violent because of the wars fought during those years, and it was violent because it was fueled by irreconcilable conflicts in the way people conceived of power, politics, and economics. It was violent and uncompromising in its conception of religion and the relationship with diversity. It was a time when a growing number of intellectuals felt the need to speak of tolerance because they lived in an intolerant world. A world divided between Catholics and Protestants, between aristocrats and rising bourgeoisie, between sovereigns elected by God and monarchs elected by man. It was a world politically and psychologically unprepared to accept difference. It had not yet developed the mental processes that allow individuals to relate to diversity in terms of relationships and not conflict. Furthermore, politically, the scenario of the second half of the sixteenth century was certainly not comforting: after the great cultural and religious uniformity of the Middle Ages, Europe had literally fallen apart. In this climate of profound contrasts, the figure of Philip II of Spain emerged, son of Charles V and lord of dominions that occupied the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, the Netherlands, a large part of the Americas and the Philippines.

English historian Geoffrey Parker's latest, impressive biography, The Imprudent King (Hoepli editore, 2025, €34.90, pp. 504), is dedicated to the Spanish monarch. Drawing on a vast archive of documents, some previously unpublished, Parker creates a portrait of the son of Charles V, the king who inherited an empire spanning two continents, married Mary Tudor, and launched the Spanish Armada against Elizabeth I of England. This is a compelling and definitive portrait, thanks above all to an extraordinary discovery that significantly alters the stereotypical image of Philip II: a treasure trove of 3,000 documents preserved in the vault of the Hispanic Society of America in New York City, unread since they crossed the ocean with Philip's desk more than four centuries ago.

With a wide-ranging and meticulously detailed reconstruction, Parker examines Philip's long apprenticeship, his three main interests (work, play, and religion), and the major political, military, and personal challenges he faced during his long reign, while also questioning the causes of his leadership failure. He thus portrays a monarch too distant, too austere for modern tastes, yet fully in his late sixteenth-century style, capable of expressing the grandeur and prestige of Spain alongside the significant limitations of what was, it is worth remembering, the greatest world power of its time.