A female calendar
Ca. 1517. «The Visitation». Giulio Romano / Giovanni Francesco Penni © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

The goddess, the moon, and the weasel
Ca. 1521-1523. «Portrait of Lucina Brembati». Lorenzo Lotto © Fondazione Accademia, Carrara (Italy)

Dolls in the Spanish Golden Age: Playfully encouraging maternity
Left: 1584. «Portrait of a three-year-old girl». Isaac Claesz van Swanenburg © The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow. Right: 1550. The Younger, Christ blessing the children (detail). Lucas Cranach © Metropolitan Museum, New York (USA) (CC0)

Menarche and fertility of princesses: María Magdalena de Austria
1670. Medal showing a portrait of Anne of Medici, archduchess of Austria-Tyrol. Unknown author © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Royal menarche: a state affair
Ca. 1575/1550. Farmers calendar without text. Since the movable festivals are missing, the calendar was apparently not intended for a specific year. Xylogr. 42 a © Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich (Germany)

Fertility as a political weapon: Mariana de Austria
1646. «Archduchess Mariana of Austria», daughter of Ferdinand III. Frans Luycks © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain).

What was the average age of marriage for royal women in the Early Modern period?
Ca. 1616. «Wedding of Luis XIII, king of France and Navarre, and the infanta Anna of Austria». Jean Chalette. © Musée des Augustines-Musée de Beaux-Arts, Toulouse (France). Photo: Bernard Delorme © Bernard Delorme and Daniel Martin

Noble wedding in Begoña
1607. «Noble wedding in Begoña». Francisco de Mendieta y Retes © Geroztik Historia Museo Birtuala (Spain)

Marital excesses: María Manuela de Portugal
Ca. 1542. «Maria Manuela of Portugal», first wife of king Philip II of Spain. Unknown author © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Bucarophagy
1656. «The Family of Philip IV» or «’Las Meninas’» (detail). Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

A family affair: Mothers, mothers in law and other relatives and their behaviour towards royal fertility
Ca. 1585. «Infanta Catalina Micaela». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Wandering womb
1665. «The Doctor`s Visit». Jan Steen © Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (Netherlands).

Posthumous birth: Life overcoming death
1554. Newborn Sebastian of Portugal from a manuscript by André Rodrigues de Évora ‘Sentenças para a ensinança e doutrina do príncipe D. Sebastião’, p. 31. Facsimile edition (Lisbon, 1983) of the unpublished manuscript of the Casa Cadaval © Banco Pinto and Sotto Mayor

Posthumous birth under suspicion
[N.d.]. Genealogy of Diego Manuel Dávalos y Aquino, 13th marquis of Pescara. He is the posthumous first-born and universal heir of Francisco María Dávalos, whose widow, Isabel Ana de Mendoza, had given birth seven months after his death. Salazar y Castro collection of the Spanish Royal Academy of History. 9/294, fol. 71v. Public Domain Mark 1.0:

Pregnancy and childbirth in the letters of Mariana de Austria
1651/1661. «Queen Maria Anna of Spain in a bright red dress». Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Ten privileges for pregnant women
16th Century. A woman giving birth, calling out to the Roman goddess Lucina («’Celestial diosa del parto, alma Lucina, / Principio y causa de todos los bien fecundos / que informas y conservas y perpetúas el mundo / Sé propicio para nosotros tu divina bondad’»). Four women are in attendance, one of them aged, with a stick. Giulio Antonio Bonasone. © Wellcome Collection. (CC BY 4.0)

Days and months
1628. Book frontispiece of ‘Disputatio de vera humani partus naturalis et legitimi designatione’. Alphonsi a Carranza, Madrid (Spain)

From the womb: Communication with the outside world
1667. Letter from Margarita to Leopoldo I. ÖSTA HHStA HausA Familienkorrespondenz A 55-14, fol. 142-143 © Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna (Austria). Letter found by Laura Oliván

A nun who ruled in delivery rooms: Mariana de Jesús and the midwife Inés de Ayala
1624. Funerary mask of Blessed Mariana de Jesus. Madrid (Spain), Convent of MM. Mercedarias de Don Juan de Alarcón. [Taken from Curros y Ares, M.A., ‘Mercedarian Mothers of Don Juan de Alarcón’, vol. II (Catalogue of Sculpture), Madrid, Order of Our Lady of Mercy, 1988.]

Food for pregnancy and birth
Ca. 1528. «The Birth of the Virgin». Ambrosius Benson © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Protective saints: Prints and relics
Between 1701 and 1800. Print of Saint Raymond Nonnatus. INVENT/30066. Unknown author © National Library of Spain, ‘Hispánica Digital Library’

To deliver with good forces
1237. Delivery in an Arab household. Yahya ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti. In ‘Maqamat of al-Hariri’. Arab manuscript 5847, fol.122v © ‘Bibliothèque Nationale de France’, Paris. According to Antonio Arjona Castro (1983) «until recent times, babies were delivered in this position in some rural areas of Andalucía»

The delivery chair
1580. Childbirth chair or seat, illustration included in the book entitled ‘Human childbirth, which contains very useful and usual remedies for difficult childbirth in women, with many other secrets pertaining to it’ by Francisco Núñez

Born with a caul
Ca. 1800. Foetus in amniotic in uterus. Wax tabled used as didactic material © Wellcome Trust Collection, Science Museum, London (UK). (CC BY 4.0)

«Si mater in partu moritur, incidatur»: The postmortem caesarean section
Left: 1401-1500. The Birth of Julius Caesar. Faits des Romains, Paul Orose. BnF, fr. 64 (1401-1500), f. 234r © Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. Right: 1364-1365. The Birth of Julius Caesar. Histoire ancienne jusqu'à César; Faits des Romains. Wauchier de Denain. BnF, fr. 246 (XIV sec.), f. 158r © Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris

Fathers and childbirth
Ca. 1633-1635. «Nacimiento de san Juan Bautista». Artemisa de Gentileschi © Museo del Prado, Madrid

Swaddling newborns in the Golden Age
Ca. 1645. «The Newborn Child». Georges de La Tour © Musée des Beaux Arts, Rennes (France)

Prophetic midwives
Ca. 1684. «The Midwife Lachesi». Pietro Bellotti © Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart (Germany)

The umbilical cords of the Harrach family
A photograph of Ernst Guido von Harrach’s umbilical cord. AVA FA Harrach © Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna (Austria)

Emergency baptism
1722. A new-born baby being baptised by a midwife in the mother's bedroom. Etching by Bernard Picart © Wellcome Collection (Public Domain)

Melancholy: Depression during pregnancy and in the postpartum period
Between 1532 and 1562. «Sadness and pain punishing Psyche». INVENT/6971. Dice Master, Michiel Coxcie, Antonio Salamanca © National Library of Spain-Hispanic Digital Library

Amulets against the «evil eye»
1602. «Infanta Anna of Austria». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Convento de las Descalzas Reales, Madrid (Spain)

Painted ‘ex-votos’
From left to right and from top to bottom: 1865, 1817, 1863, 1869-79, 1826 and 1825. Painted votive offerings (canvases and polychrome panels) offered to the Blessed Christ of the Battles. Church-Museum of San Sebastián de los Caballeros (Toro, Zamora, Spain). Photographs: Jesús Caramanzana. Top to down and left to right: Dangerous childbirth (a, b)., birth after abortion (c, d), postpartum period (e and f) © Jesús Caramanzana

Foundlings and notes of abandonment
1593. Note of abandonment of a foundling. «This child is christened; the name is Felipe, he is one month and a half old. The mother died in such a misery, that it became necessary to take this steep. He was kept alive with soup». Regional Archive of the Community of Madrid, Madrid, ‘Notas de de abandono’, 8657/13, No. 2/66. Photo: Lisa Heilig © Lisa Heilig

Death in childbed
Left: Ca. 1603/1609. «Queen Margarita of Austria-Styria», wife of Philip III of Spain. Bartolomé González © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria). Right: 1652. «Empress Maria Leopoldine of Austria», second wife of Ferdinand III. Lorenzo Lippi © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Midwives and emergency baptisms in a Salmantine parish (Spain, 1670-1730)
1510. A midwife administers emergency baptism to a newborn baby. Votive Image, 16th century; the image was reused for a similar vow at the end of the 18th century. Parish church Großgmain, Salzburg (Austria) Photo: Florian Bischof © Florian Bischof

Death as birth and birth as death
1586-1588. «The Burial of the Count of Orgaz». Dominikos Theotokopoulos ‘El Greco’ © Church of Santo Tomé, Toledo (Spain)

Birth spacing among commoners
Ca. 1787. «The baptism of Saint Francis». Zacarías González Velázquez. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Funerary monuments of mothers and children
Top: 1622, Elizabeth Williams’s funerary monument, Samuel Baldwin. Lady Chapel, Gloucester Cathedral, Gloucester (United Kingdom). Left: 1826, Cenotaph in memory of princess Charlotte of Wales, Matthew C. Wyatt. Saint George Chapel, Windsor Castle, Windsor (United Kingdom). Right: 1751, Tomb of Maria Magdalena Langhans, Johann August Nahl. Church of Hindelbank, Bäriswil, Bern (Switzerland)

Child mortality
1603. «Infanta Margaret of Austria in her coffin». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales, Madrid (Spain)

Grandmothers and grandchildren
1603. «The Birth of the Virgin». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

A female calendar
Ca. 1517. «The Visitation». Giulio Romano / Giovanni Francesco Penni © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

The goddess, the moon, and the weasel
Ca. 1521-1523. «Portrait of Lucina Brembati». Lorenzo Lotto © Fondazione Accademia, Carrara (Italy)

Dolls in the Spanish Golden Age: Playfully encouraging maternity
Left: 1584. «Portrait of a three-year-old girl». Isaac Claesz van Swanenburg © The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow. Right: 1550. The Younger, Christ blessing the children (detail). Lucas Cranach © Metropolitan Museum, New York (USA) (CC0)

Menarche and fertility of princesses: María Magdalena de Austria
1670. Medal showing a portrait of Anne of Medici, archduchess of Austria-Tyrol. Unknown author © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Royal menarche: a state affair
Ca. 1575/1550. Farmers calendar without text. Since the movable festivals are missing, the calendar was apparently not intended for a specific year. Xylogr. 42 a © Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich (Germany)

Fertility as a political weapon: Mariana de Austria
1646. «Archduchess Mariana of Austria», daughter of Ferdinand III. Frans Luycks © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain).

What was the average age of marriage for royal women in the Early Modern period?
Ca. 1616. «Wedding of Luis XIII, king of France and Navarre, and the infanta Anna of Austria». Jean Chalette. © Musée des Augustines-Musée de Beaux-Arts, Toulouse (France). Photo: Bernard Delorme © Bernard Delorme and Daniel Martin

Noble wedding in Begoña
1607. «Noble wedding in Begoña». Francisco de Mendieta y Retes © Geroztik Historia Museo Birtuala (Spain)

Marital excesses: María Manuela de Portugal
Ca. 1542. «Maria Manuela of Portugal», first wife of king Philip II of Spain. Unknown author © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Bucarophagy
1656. «The Family of Philip IV» or «’Las Meninas’» (detail). Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

A family affair: Mothers, mothers in law and other relatives and their behaviour towards royal fertility
Ca. 1585. «Infanta Catalina Micaela». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Wandering womb
1665. «The Doctor`s Visit». Jan Steen © Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (Netherlands).

Posthumous birth: Life overcoming death
1554. Newborn Sebastian of Portugal from a manuscript by André Rodrigues de Évora ‘Sentenças para a ensinança e doutrina do príncipe D. Sebastião’, p. 31. Facsimile edition (Lisbon, 1983) of the unpublished manuscript of the Casa Cadaval © Banco Pinto and Sotto Mayor

Posthumous birth under suspicion
[N.d.]. Genealogy of Diego Manuel Dávalos y Aquino, 13th marquis of Pescara. He is the posthumous first-born and universal heir of Francisco María Dávalos, whose widow, Isabel Ana de Mendoza, had given birth seven months after his death. Salazar y Castro collection of the Spanish Royal Academy of History. 9/294, fol. 71v. Public Domain Mark 1.0:

Pregnancy and childbirth in the letters of Mariana de Austria
1651/1661. «Queen Maria Anna of Spain in a bright red dress». Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Ten privileges for pregnant women
16th Century. A woman giving birth, calling out to the Roman goddess Lucina («’Celestial diosa del parto, alma Lucina, / Principio y causa de todos los bien fecundos / que informas y conservas y perpetúas el mundo / Sé propicio para nosotros tu divina bondad’»). Four women are in attendance, one of them aged, with a stick. Giulio Antonio Bonasone. © Wellcome Collection. (CC BY 4.0)

Days and months
1628. Book frontispiece of ‘Disputatio de vera humani partus naturalis et legitimi designatione’. Alphonsi a Carranza, Madrid (Spain)

From the womb: Communication with the outside world
1667. Letter from Margarita to Leopoldo I. ÖSTA HHStA HausA Familienkorrespondenz A 55-14, fol. 142-143 © Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna (Austria). Letter found by Laura Oliván

A nun who ruled in delivery rooms: Mariana de Jesús and the midwife Inés de Ayala
1624. Funerary mask of Blessed Mariana de Jesus. Madrid (Spain), Convent of MM. Mercedarias de Don Juan de Alarcón. [Taken from Curros y Ares, M.A., ‘Mercedarian Mothers of Don Juan de Alarcón’, vol. II (Catalogue of Sculpture), Madrid, Order of Our Lady of Mercy, 1988.]

Food for pregnancy and birth
Ca. 1528. «The Birth of the Virgin». Ambrosius Benson © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Protective saints: Prints and relics
Between 1701 and 1800. Print of Saint Raymond Nonnatus. INVENT/30066. Unknown author © National Library of Spain, ‘Hispánica Digital Library’

To deliver with good forces
1237. Delivery in an Arab household. Yahya ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti. In ‘Maqamat of al-Hariri’. Arab manuscript 5847, fol.122v © ‘Bibliothèque Nationale de France’, Paris. According to Antonio Arjona Castro (1983) «until recent times, babies were delivered in this position in some rural areas of Andalucía»

The delivery chair
1580. Childbirth chair or seat, illustration included in the book entitled ‘Human childbirth, which contains very useful and usual remedies for difficult childbirth in women, with many other secrets pertaining to it’ by Francisco Núñez

Born with a caul
Ca. 1800. Foetus in amniotic in uterus. Wax tabled used as didactic material © Wellcome Trust Collection, Science Museum, London (UK). (CC BY 4.0)

«Si mater in partu moritur, incidatur»: The postmortem caesarean section
Left: 1401-1500. The Birth of Julius Caesar. Faits des Romains, Paul Orose. BnF, fr. 64 (1401-1500), f. 234r © Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. Right: 1364-1365. The Birth of Julius Caesar. Histoire ancienne jusqu'à César; Faits des Romains. Wauchier de Denain. BnF, fr. 246 (XIV sec.), f. 158r © Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris

Fathers and childbirth
Ca. 1633-1635. «Nacimiento de san Juan Bautista». Artemisa de Gentileschi © Museo del Prado, Madrid

Swaddling newborns in the Golden Age
Ca. 1645. «The Newborn Child». Georges de La Tour © Musée des Beaux Arts, Rennes (France)

Prophetic midwives
Ca. 1684. «The Midwife Lachesi». Pietro Bellotti © Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart (Germany)

The umbilical cords of the Harrach family
A photograph of Ernst Guido von Harrach’s umbilical cord. AVA FA Harrach © Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna (Austria)

Emergency baptism
1722. A new-born baby being baptised by a midwife in the mother's bedroom. Etching by Bernard Picart © Wellcome Collection (Public Domain)

Melancholy: Depression during pregnancy and in the postpartum period
Between 1532 and 1562. «Sadness and pain punishing Psyche». INVENT/6971. Dice Master, Michiel Coxcie, Antonio Salamanca © National Library of Spain-Hispanic Digital Library

Amulets against the «evil eye»
1602. «Infanta Anna of Austria». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Convento de las Descalzas Reales, Madrid (Spain)

Painted ‘ex-votos’
From left to right and from top to bottom: 1865, 1817, 1863, 1869-79, 1826 and 1825. Painted votive offerings (canvases and polychrome panels) offered to the Blessed Christ of the Battles. Church-Museum of San Sebastián de los Caballeros (Toro, Zamora, Spain). Photographs: Jesús Caramanzana. Top to down and left to right: Dangerous childbirth (a, b)., birth after abortion (c, d), postpartum period (e and f) © Jesús Caramanzana

Foundlings and notes of abandonment
1593. Note of abandonment of a foundling. «This child is christened; the name is Felipe, he is one month and a half old. The mother died in such a misery, that it became necessary to take this steep. He was kept alive with soup». Regional Archive of the Community of Madrid, Madrid, ‘Notas de de abandono’, 8657/13, No. 2/66. Photo: Lisa Heilig © Lisa Heilig

Death in childbed
Left: Ca. 1603/1609. «Queen Margarita of Austria-Styria», wife of Philip III of Spain. Bartolomé González © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria). Right: 1652. «Empress Maria Leopoldine of Austria», second wife of Ferdinand III. Lorenzo Lippi © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Midwives and emergency baptisms in a Salmantine parish (Spain, 1670-1730)
1510. A midwife administers emergency baptism to a newborn baby. Votive Image, 16th century; the image was reused for a similar vow at the end of the 18th century. Parish church Großgmain, Salzburg (Austria) Photo: Florian Bischof © Florian Bischof

Death as birth and birth as death
1586-1588. «The Burial of the Count of Orgaz». Dominikos Theotokopoulos ‘El Greco’ © Church of Santo Tomé, Toledo (Spain)

Birth spacing among commoners
Ca. 1787. «The baptism of Saint Francis». Zacarías González Velázquez. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Funerary monuments of mothers and children
Top: 1622, Elizabeth Williams’s funerary monument, Samuel Baldwin. Lady Chapel, Gloucester Cathedral, Gloucester (United Kingdom). Left: 1826, Cenotaph in memory of princess Charlotte of Wales, Matthew C. Wyatt. Saint George Chapel, Windsor Castle, Windsor (United Kingdom). Right: 1751, Tomb of Maria Magdalena Langhans, Johann August Nahl. Church of Hindelbank, Bäriswil, Bern (Switzerland)

Child mortality
1603. «Infanta Margaret of Austria in her coffin». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales, Madrid (Spain)

Grandmothers and grandchildren
1603. «The Birth of the Virgin». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

A female calendar
Ca. 1517. «The Visitation». Giulio Romano / Giovanni Francesco Penni © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

The goddess, the moon, and the weasel
Ca. 1521-1523. «Portrait of Lucina Brembati». Lorenzo Lotto © Fondazione Accademia, Carrara (Italy)

Dolls in the Spanish Golden Age: Playfully encouraging maternity
Left: 1584. «Portrait of a three-year-old girl». Isaac Claesz van Swanenburg © The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow. Right: 1550. The Younger, Christ blessing the children (detail). Lucas Cranach © Metropolitan Museum, New York (USA) (CC0)

Menarche and fertility of princesses: María Magdalena de Austria
1670. Medal showing a portrait of Anne of Medici, archduchess of Austria-Tyrol. Unknown author © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Royal menarche: a state affair
Ca. 1575/1550. Farmers calendar without text. Since the movable festivals are missing, the calendar was apparently not intended for a specific year. Xylogr. 42 a © Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich (Germany)

Fertility as a political weapon: Mariana de Austria
1646. «Archduchess Mariana of Austria», daughter of Ferdinand III. Frans Luycks © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain).

What was the average age of marriage for royal women in the Early Modern period?
Ca. 1616. «Wedding of Luis XIII, king of France and Navarre, and the infanta Anna of Austria». Jean Chalette. © Musée des Augustines-Musée de Beaux-Arts, Toulouse (France). Photo: Bernard Delorme © Bernard Delorme and Daniel Martin

Noble wedding in Begoña
1607. «Noble wedding in Begoña». Francisco de Mendieta y Retes © Geroztik Historia Museo Birtuala (Spain)

Marital excesses: María Manuela de Portugal
Ca. 1542. «Maria Manuela of Portugal», first wife of king Philip II of Spain. Unknown author © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Bucarophagy
1656. «The Family of Philip IV» or «’Las Meninas’» (detail). Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

A family affair: Mothers, mothers in law and other relatives and their behaviour towards royal fertility
Ca. 1585. «Infanta Catalina Micaela». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Wandering womb
1665. «The Doctor`s Visit». Jan Steen © Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (Netherlands).

Posthumous birth: Life overcoming death
1554. Newborn Sebastian of Portugal from a manuscript by André Rodrigues de Évora ‘Sentenças para a ensinança e doutrina do príncipe D. Sebastião’, p. 31. Facsimile edition (Lisbon, 1983) of the unpublished manuscript of the Casa Cadaval © Banco Pinto and Sotto Mayor

Posthumous birth under suspicion
[N.d.]. Genealogy of Diego Manuel Dávalos y Aquino, 13th marquis of Pescara. He is the posthumous first-born and universal heir of Francisco María Dávalos, whose widow, Isabel Ana de Mendoza, had given birth seven months after his death. Salazar y Castro collection of the Spanish Royal Academy of History. 9/294, fol. 71v. Public Domain Mark 1.0:

Pregnancy and childbirth in the letters of Mariana de Austria
1651/1661. «Queen Maria Anna of Spain in a bright red dress». Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Ten privileges for pregnant women
16th Century. A woman giving birth, calling out to the Roman goddess Lucina («’Celestial diosa del parto, alma Lucina, / Principio y causa de todos los bien fecundos / que informas y conservas y perpetúas el mundo / Sé propicio para nosotros tu divina bondad’»). Four women are in attendance, one of them aged, with a stick. Giulio Antonio Bonasone. © Wellcome Collection. (CC BY 4.0)

Days and months
1628. Book frontispiece of ‘Disputatio de vera humani partus naturalis et legitimi designatione’. Alphonsi a Carranza, Madrid (Spain)

From the womb: Communication with the outside world
1667. Letter from Margarita to Leopoldo I. ÖSTA HHStA HausA Familienkorrespondenz A 55-14, fol. 142-143 © Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna (Austria). Letter found by Laura Oliván

A nun who ruled in delivery rooms: Mariana de Jesús and the midwife Inés de Ayala
1624. Funerary mask of Blessed Mariana de Jesus. Madrid (Spain), Convent of MM. Mercedarias de Don Juan de Alarcón. [Taken from Curros y Ares, M.A., ‘Mercedarian Mothers of Don Juan de Alarcón’, vol. II (Catalogue of Sculpture), Madrid, Order of Our Lady of Mercy, 1988.]

Food for pregnancy and birth
Ca. 1528. «The Birth of the Virgin». Ambrosius Benson © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Protective saints: Prints and relics
Between 1701 and 1800. Print of Saint Raymond Nonnatus. INVENT/30066. Unknown author © National Library of Spain, ‘Hispánica Digital Library’

To deliver with good forces
1237. Delivery in an Arab household. Yahya ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti. In ‘Maqamat of al-Hariri’. Arab manuscript 5847, fol.122v © ‘Bibliothèque Nationale de France’, Paris. According to Antonio Arjona Castro (1983) «until recent times, babies were delivered in this position in some rural areas of Andalucía»

The delivery chair
1580. Childbirth chair or seat, illustration included in the book entitled ‘Human childbirth, which contains very useful and usual remedies for difficult childbirth in women, with many other secrets pertaining to it’ by Francisco Núñez

Born with a caul
Ca. 1800. Foetus in amniotic in uterus. Wax tabled used as didactic material © Wellcome Trust Collection, Science Museum, London (UK). (CC BY 4.0)

«Si mater in partu moritur, incidatur»: The postmortem caesarean section
Left: 1401-1500. The Birth of Julius Caesar. Faits des Romains, Paul Orose. BnF, fr. 64 (1401-1500), f. 234r © Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. Right: 1364-1365. The Birth of Julius Caesar. Histoire ancienne jusqu'à César; Faits des Romains. Wauchier de Denain. BnF, fr. 246 (XIV sec.), f. 158r © Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris

Fathers and childbirth
Ca. 1633-1635. «Nacimiento de san Juan Bautista». Artemisa de Gentileschi © Museo del Prado, Madrid

Swaddling newborns in the Golden Age
Ca. 1645. «The Newborn Child». Georges de La Tour © Musée des Beaux Arts, Rennes (France)

Prophetic midwives
Ca. 1684. «The Midwife Lachesi». Pietro Bellotti © Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart (Germany)

The umbilical cords of the Harrach family
A photograph of Ernst Guido von Harrach’s umbilical cord. AVA FA Harrach © Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna (Austria)

Emergency baptism
1722. A new-born baby being baptised by a midwife in the mother's bedroom. Etching by Bernard Picart © Wellcome Collection (Public Domain)

Melancholy: Depression during pregnancy and in the postpartum period
Between 1532 and 1562. «Sadness and pain punishing Psyche». INVENT/6971. Dice Master, Michiel Coxcie, Antonio Salamanca © National Library of Spain-Hispanic Digital Library

Amulets against the «evil eye»
1602. «Infanta Anna of Austria». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Convento de las Descalzas Reales, Madrid (Spain)

Painted ‘ex-votos’
From left to right and from top to bottom: 1865, 1817, 1863, 1869-79, 1826 and 1825. Painted votive offerings (canvases and polychrome panels) offered to the Blessed Christ of the Battles. Church-Museum of San Sebastián de los Caballeros (Toro, Zamora, Spain). Photographs: Jesús Caramanzana. Top to down and left to right: Dangerous childbirth (a, b)., birth after abortion (c, d), postpartum period (e and f) © Jesús Caramanzana

Foundlings and notes of abandonment
1593. Note of abandonment of a foundling. «This child is christened; the name is Felipe, he is one month and a half old. The mother died in such a misery, that it became necessary to take this steep. He was kept alive with soup». Regional Archive of the Community of Madrid, Madrid, ‘Notas de de abandono’, 8657/13, No. 2/66. Photo: Lisa Heilig © Lisa Heilig

Death in childbed
Left: Ca. 1603/1609. «Queen Margarita of Austria-Styria», wife of Philip III of Spain. Bartolomé González © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria). Right: 1652. «Empress Maria Leopoldine of Austria», second wife of Ferdinand III. Lorenzo Lippi © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Midwives and emergency baptisms in a Salmantine parish (Spain, 1670-1730)
1510. A midwife administers emergency baptism to a newborn baby. Votive Image, 16th century; the image was reused for a similar vow at the end of the 18th century. Parish church Großgmain, Salzburg (Austria) Photo: Florian Bischof © Florian Bischof

Death as birth and birth as death
1586-1588. «The Burial of the Count of Orgaz». Dominikos Theotokopoulos ‘El Greco’ © Church of Santo Tomé, Toledo (Spain)

Birth spacing among commoners
Ca. 1787. «The baptism of Saint Francis». Zacarías González Velázquez. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Funerary monuments of mothers and children
Top: 1622, Elizabeth Williams’s funerary monument, Samuel Baldwin. Lady Chapel, Gloucester Cathedral, Gloucester (United Kingdom). Left: 1826, Cenotaph in memory of princess Charlotte of Wales, Matthew C. Wyatt. Saint George Chapel, Windsor Castle, Windsor (United Kingdom). Right: 1751, Tomb of Maria Magdalena Langhans, Johann August Nahl. Church of Hindelbank, Bäriswil, Bern (Switzerland)

Child mortality
1603. «Infanta Margaret of Austria in her coffin». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales, Madrid (Spain)

Grandmothers and grandchildren
1603. «The Birth of the Virgin». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

A female calendar
Ca. 1517. «The Visitation». Giulio Romano / Giovanni Francesco Penni © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

The goddess, the moon, and the weasel
Ca. 1521-1523. «Portrait of Lucina Brembati». Lorenzo Lotto © Fondazione Accademia, Carrara (Italy)

Dolls in the Spanish Golden Age: Playfully encouraging maternity
Left: 1584. «Portrait of a three-year-old girl». Isaac Claesz van Swanenburg © The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow. Right: 1550. The Younger, Christ blessing the children (detail). Lucas Cranach © Metropolitan Museum, New York (USA) (CC0)

Menarche and fertility of princesses: María Magdalena de Austria
1670. Medal showing a portrait of Anne of Medici, archduchess of Austria-Tyrol. Unknown author © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Royal menarche: a state affair
Ca. 1575/1550. Farmers calendar without text. Since the movable festivals are missing, the calendar was apparently not intended for a specific year. Xylogr. 42 a © Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich (Germany)

Fertility as a political weapon: Mariana de Austria
1646. «Archduchess Mariana of Austria», daughter of Ferdinand III. Frans Luycks © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain).

What was the average age of marriage for royal women in the Early Modern period?
Ca. 1616. «Wedding of Luis XIII, king of France and Navarre, and the infanta Anna of Austria». Jean Chalette. © Musée des Augustines-Musée de Beaux-Arts, Toulouse (France). Photo: Bernard Delorme © Bernard Delorme and Daniel Martin

Noble wedding in Begoña
1607. «Noble wedding in Begoña». Francisco de Mendieta y Retes © Geroztik Historia Museo Birtuala (Spain)

Marital excesses: María Manuela de Portugal
Ca. 1542. «Maria Manuela of Portugal», first wife of king Philip II of Spain. Unknown author © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Bucarophagy
1656. «The Family of Philip IV» or «’Las Meninas’» (detail). Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

A family affair: Mothers, mothers in law and other relatives and their behaviour towards royal fertility
Ca. 1585. «Infanta Catalina Micaela». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Wandering womb
1665. «The Doctor`s Visit». Jan Steen © Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (Netherlands).

Posthumous birth: Life overcoming death
1554. Newborn Sebastian of Portugal from a manuscript by André Rodrigues de Évora ‘Sentenças para a ensinança e doutrina do príncipe D. Sebastião’, p. 31. Facsimile edition (Lisbon, 1983) of the unpublished manuscript of the Casa Cadaval © Banco Pinto and Sotto Mayor

Posthumous birth under suspicion
[N.d.]. Genealogy of Diego Manuel Dávalos y Aquino, 13th marquis of Pescara. He is the posthumous first-born and universal heir of Francisco María Dávalos, whose widow, Isabel Ana de Mendoza, had given birth seven months after his death. Salazar y Castro collection of the Spanish Royal Academy of History. 9/294, fol. 71v. Public Domain Mark 1.0:

Pregnancy and childbirth in the letters of Mariana de Austria
1651/1661. «Queen Maria Anna of Spain in a bright red dress». Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Ten privileges for pregnant women
16th Century. A woman giving birth, calling out to the Roman goddess Lucina («’Celestial diosa del parto, alma Lucina, / Principio y causa de todos los bien fecundos / que informas y conservas y perpetúas el mundo / Sé propicio para nosotros tu divina bondad’»). Four women are in attendance, one of them aged, with a stick. Giulio Antonio Bonasone. © Wellcome Collection. (CC BY 4.0)

Days and months
1628. Book frontispiece of ‘Disputatio de vera humani partus naturalis et legitimi designatione’. Alphonsi a Carranza, Madrid (Spain)

From the womb: Communication with the outside world
1667. Letter from Margarita to Leopoldo I. ÖSTA HHStA HausA Familienkorrespondenz A 55-14, fol. 142-143 © Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna (Austria). Letter found by Laura Oliván

A nun who ruled in delivery rooms: Mariana de Jesús and the midwife Inés de Ayala
1624. Funerary mask of Blessed Mariana de Jesus. Madrid (Spain), Convent of MM. Mercedarias de Don Juan de Alarcón. [Taken from Curros y Ares, M.A., ‘Mercedarian Mothers of Don Juan de Alarcón’, vol. II (Catalogue of Sculpture), Madrid, Order of Our Lady of Mercy, 1988.]

Food for pregnancy and birth
Ca. 1528. «The Birth of the Virgin». Ambrosius Benson © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Protective saints: Prints and relics
Between 1701 and 1800. Print of Saint Raymond Nonnatus. INVENT/30066. Unknown author © National Library of Spain, ‘Hispánica Digital Library’

To deliver with good forces
1237. Delivery in an Arab household. Yahya ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti. In ‘Maqamat of al-Hariri’. Arab manuscript 5847, fol.122v © ‘Bibliothèque Nationale de France’, Paris. According to Antonio Arjona Castro (1983) «until recent times, babies were delivered in this position in some rural areas of Andalucía»

The delivery chair
1580. Childbirth chair or seat, illustration included in the book entitled ‘Human childbirth, which contains very useful and usual remedies for difficult childbirth in women, with many other secrets pertaining to it’ by Francisco Núñez

Born with a caul
Ca. 1800. Foetus in amniotic in uterus. Wax tabled used as didactic material © Wellcome Trust Collection, Science Museum, London (UK). (CC BY 4.0)

«Si mater in partu moritur, incidatur»: The postmortem caesarean section
Left: 1401-1500. The Birth of Julius Caesar. Faits des Romains, Paul Orose. BnF, fr. 64 (1401-1500), f. 234r © Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. Right: 1364-1365. The Birth of Julius Caesar. Histoire ancienne jusqu'à César; Faits des Romains. Wauchier de Denain. BnF, fr. 246 (XIV sec.), f. 158r © Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris

Fathers and childbirth
Ca. 1633-1635. «Nacimiento de san Juan Bautista». Artemisa de Gentileschi © Museo del Prado, Madrid

Swaddling newborns in the Golden Age
Ca. 1645. «The Newborn Child». Georges de La Tour © Musée des Beaux Arts, Rennes (France)

Prophetic midwives
Ca. 1684. «The Midwife Lachesi». Pietro Bellotti © Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart (Germany)

The umbilical cords of the Harrach family
A photograph of Ernst Guido von Harrach’s umbilical cord. AVA FA Harrach © Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna (Austria)

Emergency baptism
1722. A new-born baby being baptised by a midwife in the mother's bedroom. Etching by Bernard Picart © Wellcome Collection (Public Domain)

Melancholy: Depression during pregnancy and in the postpartum period
Between 1532 and 1562. «Sadness and pain punishing Psyche». INVENT/6971. Dice Master, Michiel Coxcie, Antonio Salamanca © National Library of Spain-Hispanic Digital Library

Amulets against the «evil eye»
1602. «Infanta Anna of Austria». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Convento de las Descalzas Reales, Madrid (Spain)

Painted ‘ex-votos’
From left to right and from top to bottom: 1865, 1817, 1863, 1869-79, 1826 and 1825. Painted votive offerings (canvases and polychrome panels) offered to the Blessed Christ of the Battles. Church-Museum of San Sebastián de los Caballeros (Toro, Zamora, Spain). Photographs: Jesús Caramanzana. Top to down and left to right: Dangerous childbirth (a, b)., birth after abortion (c, d), postpartum period (e and f) © Jesús Caramanzana

Foundlings and notes of abandonment
1593. Note of abandonment of a foundling. «This child is christened; the name is Felipe, he is one month and a half old. The mother died in such a misery, that it became necessary to take this steep. He was kept alive with soup». Regional Archive of the Community of Madrid, Madrid, ‘Notas de de abandono’, 8657/13, No. 2/66. Photo: Lisa Heilig © Lisa Heilig

Death in childbed
Left: Ca. 1603/1609. «Queen Margarita of Austria-Styria», wife of Philip III of Spain. Bartolomé González © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria). Right: 1652. «Empress Maria Leopoldine of Austria», second wife of Ferdinand III. Lorenzo Lippi © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Midwives and emergency baptisms in a Salmantine parish (Spain, 1670-1730)
1510. A midwife administers emergency baptism to a newborn baby. Votive Image, 16th century; the image was reused for a similar vow at the end of the 18th century. Parish church Großgmain, Salzburg (Austria) Photo: Florian Bischof © Florian Bischof

Death as birth and birth as death
1586-1588. «The Burial of the Count of Orgaz». Dominikos Theotokopoulos ‘El Greco’ © Church of Santo Tomé, Toledo (Spain)

Birth spacing among commoners
Ca. 1787. «The baptism of Saint Francis». Zacarías González Velázquez. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Funerary monuments of mothers and children
Top: 1622, Elizabeth Williams’s funerary monument, Samuel Baldwin. Lady Chapel, Gloucester Cathedral, Gloucester (United Kingdom). Left: 1826, Cenotaph in memory of princess Charlotte of Wales, Matthew C. Wyatt. Saint George Chapel, Windsor Castle, Windsor (United Kingdom). Right: 1751, Tomb of Maria Magdalena Langhans, Johann August Nahl. Church of Hindelbank, Bäriswil, Bern (Switzerland)

Child mortality
1603. «Infanta Margaret of Austria in her coffin». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales, Madrid (Spain)

Grandmothers and grandchildren
1603. «The Birth of the Virgin». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

A female calendar
Ca. 1517. «The Visitation». Giulio Romano / Giovanni Francesco Penni © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

The goddess, the moon, and the weasel
Ca. 1521-1523. «Portrait of Lucina Brembati». Lorenzo Lotto © Fondazione Accademia, Carrara (Italy)

Dolls in the Spanish Golden Age: Playfully encouraging maternity
Left: 1584. «Portrait of a three-year-old girl». Isaac Claesz van Swanenburg © The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow. Right: 1550. The Younger, Christ blessing the children (detail). Lucas Cranach © Metropolitan Museum, New York (USA) (CC0)

Menarche and fertility of princesses: María Magdalena de Austria
1670. Medal showing a portrait of Anne of Medici, archduchess of Austria-Tyrol. Unknown author © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Royal menarche: a state affair
Ca. 1575/1550. Farmers calendar without text. Since the movable festivals are missing, the calendar was apparently not intended for a specific year. Xylogr. 42 a © Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich (Germany)

Fertility as a political weapon: Mariana de Austria
1646. «Archduchess Mariana of Austria», daughter of Ferdinand III. Frans Luycks © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain).

What was the average age of marriage for royal women in the Early Modern period?
Ca. 1616. «Wedding of Luis XIII, king of France and Navarre, and the infanta Anna of Austria». Jean Chalette. © Musée des Augustines-Musée de Beaux-Arts, Toulouse (France). Photo: Bernard Delorme © Bernard Delorme and Daniel Martin

Noble wedding in Begoña
1607. «Noble wedding in Begoña». Francisco de Mendieta y Retes © Geroztik Historia Museo Birtuala (Spain)

Marital excesses: María Manuela de Portugal
Ca. 1542. «Maria Manuela of Portugal», first wife of king Philip II of Spain. Unknown author © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Bucarophagy
1656. «The Family of Philip IV» or «’Las Meninas’» (detail). Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

A family affair: Mothers, mothers in law and other relatives and their behaviour towards royal fertility
Ca. 1585. «Infanta Catalina Micaela». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Wandering womb
1665. «The Doctor`s Visit». Jan Steen © Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (Netherlands).

Posthumous birth: Life overcoming death
1554. Newborn Sebastian of Portugal from a manuscript by André Rodrigues de Évora ‘Sentenças para a ensinança e doutrina do príncipe D. Sebastião’, p. 31. Facsimile edition (Lisbon, 1983) of the unpublished manuscript of the Casa Cadaval © Banco Pinto and Sotto Mayor

Posthumous birth under suspicion
[N.d.]. Genealogy of Diego Manuel Dávalos y Aquino, 13th marquis of Pescara. He is the posthumous first-born and universal heir of Francisco María Dávalos, whose widow, Isabel Ana de Mendoza, had given birth seven months after his death. Salazar y Castro collection of the Spanish Royal Academy of History. 9/294, fol. 71v. Public Domain Mark 1.0:

Pregnancy and childbirth in the letters of Mariana de Austria
1651/1661. «Queen Maria Anna of Spain in a bright red dress». Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Ten privileges for pregnant women
16th Century. A woman giving birth, calling out to the Roman goddess Lucina («’Celestial diosa del parto, alma Lucina, / Principio y causa de todos los bien fecundos / que informas y conservas y perpetúas el mundo / Sé propicio para nosotros tu divina bondad’»). Four women are in attendance, one of them aged, with a stick. Giulio Antonio Bonasone. © Wellcome Collection. (CC BY 4.0)

Days and months
1628. Book frontispiece of ‘Disputatio de vera humani partus naturalis et legitimi designatione’. Alphonsi a Carranza, Madrid (Spain)

From the womb: Communication with the outside world
1667. Letter from Margarita to Leopoldo I. ÖSTA HHStA HausA Familienkorrespondenz A 55-14, fol. 142-143 © Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna (Austria). Letter found by Laura Oliván

A nun who ruled in delivery rooms: Mariana de Jesús and the midwife Inés de Ayala
1624. Funerary mask of Blessed Mariana de Jesus. Madrid (Spain), Convent of MM. Mercedarias de Don Juan de Alarcón. [Taken from Curros y Ares, M.A., ‘Mercedarian Mothers of Don Juan de Alarcón’, vol. II (Catalogue of Sculpture), Madrid, Order of Our Lady of Mercy, 1988.]

Food for pregnancy and birth
Ca. 1528. «The Birth of the Virgin». Ambrosius Benson © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Protective saints: Prints and relics
Between 1701 and 1800. Print of Saint Raymond Nonnatus. INVENT/30066. Unknown author © National Library of Spain, ‘Hispánica Digital Library’

To deliver with good forces
1237. Delivery in an Arab household. Yahya ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti. In ‘Maqamat of al-Hariri’. Arab manuscript 5847, fol.122v © ‘Bibliothèque Nationale de France’, Paris. According to Antonio Arjona Castro (1983) «until recent times, babies were delivered in this position in some rural areas of Andalucía»

The delivery chair
1580. Childbirth chair or seat, illustration included in the book entitled ‘Human childbirth, which contains very useful and usual remedies for difficult childbirth in women, with many other secrets pertaining to it’ by Francisco Núñez

Born with a caul
Ca. 1800. Foetus in amniotic in uterus. Wax tabled used as didactic material © Wellcome Trust Collection, Science Museum, London (UK). (CC BY 4.0)

«Si mater in partu moritur, incidatur»: The postmortem caesarean section
Left: 1401-1500. The Birth of Julius Caesar. Faits des Romains, Paul Orose. BnF, fr. 64 (1401-1500), f. 234r © Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. Right: 1364-1365. The Birth of Julius Caesar. Histoire ancienne jusqu'à César; Faits des Romains. Wauchier de Denain. BnF, fr. 246 (XIV sec.), f. 158r © Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris

Fathers and childbirth
Ca. 1633-1635. «Nacimiento de san Juan Bautista». Artemisa de Gentileschi © Museo del Prado, Madrid

Swaddling newborns in the Golden Age
Ca. 1645. «The Newborn Child». Georges de La Tour © Musée des Beaux Arts, Rennes (France)

Prophetic midwives
Ca. 1684. «The Midwife Lachesi». Pietro Bellotti © Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart (Germany)

The umbilical cords of the Harrach family
A photograph of Ernst Guido von Harrach’s umbilical cord. AVA FA Harrach © Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna (Austria)

Emergency baptism
1722. A new-born baby being baptised by a midwife in the mother's bedroom. Etching by Bernard Picart © Wellcome Collection (Public Domain)

Melancholy: Depression during pregnancy and in the postpartum period
Between 1532 and 1562. «Sadness and pain punishing Psyche». INVENT/6971. Dice Master, Michiel Coxcie, Antonio Salamanca © National Library of Spain-Hispanic Digital Library

Amulets against the «evil eye»
1602. «Infanta Anna of Austria». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Convento de las Descalzas Reales, Madrid (Spain)

Painted ‘ex-votos’
From left to right and from top to bottom: 1865, 1817, 1863, 1869-79, 1826 and 1825. Painted votive offerings (canvases and polychrome panels) offered to the Blessed Christ of the Battles. Church-Museum of San Sebastián de los Caballeros (Toro, Zamora, Spain). Photographs: Jesús Caramanzana. Top to down and left to right: Dangerous childbirth (a, b)., birth after abortion (c, d), postpartum period (e and f) © Jesús Caramanzana

Foundlings and notes of abandonment
1593. Note of abandonment of a foundling. «This child is christened; the name is Felipe, he is one month and a half old. The mother died in such a misery, that it became necessary to take this steep. He was kept alive with soup». Regional Archive of the Community of Madrid, Madrid, ‘Notas de de abandono’, 8657/13, No. 2/66. Photo: Lisa Heilig © Lisa Heilig

Death in childbed
Left: Ca. 1603/1609. «Queen Margarita of Austria-Styria», wife of Philip III of Spain. Bartolomé González © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria). Right: 1652. «Empress Maria Leopoldine of Austria», second wife of Ferdinand III. Lorenzo Lippi © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Midwives and emergency baptisms in a Salmantine parish (Spain, 1670-1730)
1510. A midwife administers emergency baptism to a newborn baby. Votive Image, 16th century; the image was reused for a similar vow at the end of the 18th century. Parish church Großgmain, Salzburg (Austria) Photo: Florian Bischof © Florian Bischof

Death as birth and birth as death
1586-1588. «The Burial of the Count of Orgaz». Dominikos Theotokopoulos ‘El Greco’ © Church of Santo Tomé, Toledo (Spain)

Birth spacing among commoners
Ca. 1787. «The baptism of Saint Francis». Zacarías González Velázquez. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Funerary monuments of mothers and children
Top: 1622, Elizabeth Williams’s funerary monument, Samuel Baldwin. Lady Chapel, Gloucester Cathedral, Gloucester (United Kingdom). Left: 1826, Cenotaph in memory of princess Charlotte of Wales, Matthew C. Wyatt. Saint George Chapel, Windsor Castle, Windsor (United Kingdom). Right: 1751, Tomb of Maria Magdalena Langhans, Johann August Nahl. Church of Hindelbank, Bäriswil, Bern (Switzerland)

Child mortality
1603. «Infanta Margaret of Austria in her coffin». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales, Madrid (Spain)

Grandmothers and grandchildren
1603. «The Birth of the Virgin». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

A female calendar
Ca. 1517. «The Visitation». Giulio Romano / Giovanni Francesco Penni © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

The goddess, the moon, and the weasel
Ca. 1521-1523. «Portrait of Lucina Brembati». Lorenzo Lotto © Fondazione Accademia, Carrara (Italy)

Dolls in the Spanish Golden Age: Playfully encouraging maternity
Left: 1584. «Portrait of a three-year-old girl». Isaac Claesz van Swanenburg © The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow. Right: 1550. The Younger, Christ blessing the children (detail). Lucas Cranach © Metropolitan Museum, New York (USA) (CC0)

Menarche and fertility of princesses: María Magdalena de Austria
1670. Medal showing a portrait of Anne of Medici, archduchess of Austria-Tyrol. Unknown author © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Royal menarche: a state affair
Ca. 1575/1550. Farmers calendar without text. Since the movable festivals are missing, the calendar was apparently not intended for a specific year. Xylogr. 42 a © Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich (Germany)

Fertility as a political weapon: Mariana de Austria
1646. «Archduchess Mariana of Austria», daughter of Ferdinand III. Frans Luycks © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain).

What was the average age of marriage for royal women in the Early Modern period?
Ca. 1616. «Wedding of Luis XIII, king of France and Navarre, and the infanta Anna of Austria». Jean Chalette. © Musée des Augustines-Musée de Beaux-Arts, Toulouse (France). Photo: Bernard Delorme © Bernard Delorme and Daniel Martin

Noble wedding in Begoña
1607. «Noble wedding in Begoña». Francisco de Mendieta y Retes © Geroztik Historia Museo Birtuala (Spain)

Marital excesses: María Manuela de Portugal
Ca. 1542. «Maria Manuela of Portugal», first wife of king Philip II of Spain. Unknown author © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Bucarophagy
1656. «The Family of Philip IV» or «’Las Meninas’» (detail). Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

A family affair: Mothers, mothers in law and other relatives and their behaviour towards royal fertility
Ca. 1585. «Infanta Catalina Micaela». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Wandering womb
1665. «The Doctor`s Visit». Jan Steen © Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (Netherlands).

Posthumous birth: Life overcoming death
1554. Newborn Sebastian of Portugal from a manuscript by André Rodrigues de Évora ‘Sentenças para a ensinança e doutrina do príncipe D. Sebastião’, p. 31. Facsimile edition (Lisbon, 1983) of the unpublished manuscript of the Casa Cadaval © Banco Pinto and Sotto Mayor

Posthumous birth under suspicion
[N.d.]. Genealogy of Diego Manuel Dávalos y Aquino, 13th marquis of Pescara. He is the posthumous first-born and universal heir of Francisco María Dávalos, whose widow, Isabel Ana de Mendoza, had given birth seven months after his death. Salazar y Castro collection of the Spanish Royal Academy of History. 9/294, fol. 71v. Public Domain Mark 1.0:

Pregnancy and childbirth in the letters of Mariana de Austria
1651/1661. «Queen Maria Anna of Spain in a bright red dress». Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Ten privileges for pregnant women
16th Century. A woman giving birth, calling out to the Roman goddess Lucina («’Celestial diosa del parto, alma Lucina, / Principio y causa de todos los bien fecundos / que informas y conservas y perpetúas el mundo / Sé propicio para nosotros tu divina bondad’»). Four women are in attendance, one of them aged, with a stick. Giulio Antonio Bonasone. © Wellcome Collection. (CC BY 4.0)

Days and months
1628. Book frontispiece of ‘Disputatio de vera humani partus naturalis et legitimi designatione’. Alphonsi a Carranza, Madrid (Spain)

From the womb: Communication with the outside world
1667. Letter from Margarita to Leopoldo I. ÖSTA HHStA HausA Familienkorrespondenz A 55-14, fol. 142-143 © Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna (Austria). Letter found by Laura Oliván

A nun who ruled in delivery rooms: Mariana de Jesús and the midwife Inés de Ayala
1624. Funerary mask of Blessed Mariana de Jesus. Madrid (Spain), Convent of MM. Mercedarias de Don Juan de Alarcón. [Taken from Curros y Ares, M.A., ‘Mercedarian Mothers of Don Juan de Alarcón’, vol. II (Catalogue of Sculpture), Madrid, Order of Our Lady of Mercy, 1988.]

Food for pregnancy and birth
Ca. 1528. «The Birth of the Virgin». Ambrosius Benson © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Protective saints: Prints and relics
Between 1701 and 1800. Print of Saint Raymond Nonnatus. INVENT/30066. Unknown author © National Library of Spain, ‘Hispánica Digital Library’

To deliver with good forces
1237. Delivery in an Arab household. Yahya ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti. In ‘Maqamat of al-Hariri’. Arab manuscript 5847, fol.122v © ‘Bibliothèque Nationale de France’, Paris. According to Antonio Arjona Castro (1983) «until recent times, babies were delivered in this position in some rural areas of Andalucía»

The delivery chair
1580. Childbirth chair or seat, illustration included in the book entitled ‘Human childbirth, which contains very useful and usual remedies for difficult childbirth in women, with many other secrets pertaining to it’ by Francisco Núñez

Born with a caul
Ca. 1800. Foetus in amniotic in uterus. Wax tabled used as didactic material © Wellcome Trust Collection, Science Museum, London (UK). (CC BY 4.0)

«Si mater in partu moritur, incidatur»: The postmortem caesarean section
Left: 1401-1500. The Birth of Julius Caesar. Faits des Romains, Paul Orose. BnF, fr. 64 (1401-1500), f. 234r © Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. Right: 1364-1365. The Birth of Julius Caesar. Histoire ancienne jusqu'à César; Faits des Romains. Wauchier de Denain. BnF, fr. 246 (XIV sec.), f. 158r © Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris

Fathers and childbirth
Ca. 1633-1635. «Nacimiento de san Juan Bautista». Artemisa de Gentileschi © Museo del Prado, Madrid

Swaddling newborns in the Golden Age
Ca. 1645. «The Newborn Child». Georges de La Tour © Musée des Beaux Arts, Rennes (France)

Prophetic midwives
Ca. 1684. «The Midwife Lachesi». Pietro Bellotti © Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart (Germany)

The umbilical cords of the Harrach family
A photograph of Ernst Guido von Harrach’s umbilical cord. AVA FA Harrach © Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna (Austria)

Emergency baptism
1722. A new-born baby being baptised by a midwife in the mother's bedroom. Etching by Bernard Picart © Wellcome Collection (Public Domain)

Melancholy: Depression during pregnancy and in the postpartum period
Between 1532 and 1562. «Sadness and pain punishing Psyche». INVENT/6971. Dice Master, Michiel Coxcie, Antonio Salamanca © National Library of Spain-Hispanic Digital Library

Amulets against the «evil eye»
1602. «Infanta Anna of Austria». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Convento de las Descalzas Reales, Madrid (Spain)

Painted ‘ex-votos’
From left to right and from top to bottom: 1865, 1817, 1863, 1869-79, 1826 and 1825. Painted votive offerings (canvases and polychrome panels) offered to the Blessed Christ of the Battles. Church-Museum of San Sebastián de los Caballeros (Toro, Zamora, Spain). Photographs: Jesús Caramanzana. Top to down and left to right: Dangerous childbirth (a, b)., birth after abortion (c, d), postpartum period (e and f) © Jesús Caramanzana

Foundlings and notes of abandonment
1593. Note of abandonment of a foundling. «This child is christened; the name is Felipe, he is one month and a half old. The mother died in such a misery, that it became necessary to take this steep. He was kept alive with soup». Regional Archive of the Community of Madrid, Madrid, ‘Notas de de abandono’, 8657/13, No. 2/66. Photo: Lisa Heilig © Lisa Heilig

Death in childbed
Left: Ca. 1603/1609. «Queen Margarita of Austria-Styria», wife of Philip III of Spain. Bartolomé González © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria). Right: 1652. «Empress Maria Leopoldine of Austria», second wife of Ferdinand III. Lorenzo Lippi © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Midwives and emergency baptisms in a Salmantine parish (Spain, 1670-1730)
1510. A midwife administers emergency baptism to a newborn baby. Votive Image, 16th century; the image was reused for a similar vow at the end of the 18th century. Parish church Großgmain, Salzburg (Austria) Photo: Florian Bischof © Florian Bischof

Death as birth and birth as death
1586-1588. «The Burial of the Count of Orgaz». Dominikos Theotokopoulos ‘El Greco’ © Church of Santo Tomé, Toledo (Spain)

Birth spacing among commoners
Ca. 1787. «The baptism of Saint Francis». Zacarías González Velázquez. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Funerary monuments of mothers and children
Top: 1622, Elizabeth Williams’s funerary monument, Samuel Baldwin. Lady Chapel, Gloucester Cathedral, Gloucester (United Kingdom). Left: 1826, Cenotaph in memory of princess Charlotte of Wales, Matthew C. Wyatt. Saint George Chapel, Windsor Castle, Windsor (United Kingdom). Right: 1751, Tomb of Maria Magdalena Langhans, Johann August Nahl. Church of Hindelbank, Bäriswil, Bern (Switzerland)

Child mortality
1603. «Infanta Margaret of Austria in her coffin». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales, Madrid (Spain)

Grandmothers and grandchildren
1603. «The Birth of the Virgin». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

A female calendar
Ca. 1517. «The Visitation». Giulio Romano / Giovanni Francesco Penni © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

The goddess, the moon, and the weasel
Ca. 1521-1523. «Portrait of Lucina Brembati». Lorenzo Lotto © Fondazione Accademia, Carrara (Italy)

Dolls in the Spanish Golden Age: Playfully encouraging maternity
Left: 1584. «Portrait of a three-year-old girl». Isaac Claesz van Swanenburg © The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow. Right: 1550. The Younger, Christ blessing the children (detail). Lucas Cranach © Metropolitan Museum, New York (USA) (CC0)

Menarche and fertility of princesses: María Magdalena de Austria
1670. Medal showing a portrait of Anne of Medici, archduchess of Austria-Tyrol. Unknown author © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Royal menarche: a state affair
Ca. 1575/1550. Farmers calendar without text. Since the movable festivals are missing, the calendar was apparently not intended for a specific year. Xylogr. 42 a © Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich (Germany)

Fertility as a political weapon: Mariana de Austria
1646. «Archduchess Mariana of Austria», daughter of Ferdinand III. Frans Luycks © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain).

What was the average age of marriage for royal women in the Early Modern period?
Ca. 1616. «Wedding of Luis XIII, king of France and Navarre, and the infanta Anna of Austria». Jean Chalette. © Musée des Augustines-Musée de Beaux-Arts, Toulouse (France). Photo: Bernard Delorme © Bernard Delorme and Daniel Martin

Noble wedding in Begoña
1607. «Noble wedding in Begoña». Francisco de Mendieta y Retes © Geroztik Historia Museo Birtuala (Spain)

Marital excesses: María Manuela de Portugal
Ca. 1542. «Maria Manuela of Portugal», first wife of king Philip II of Spain. Unknown author © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Bucarophagy
1656. «The Family of Philip IV» or «’Las Meninas’» (detail). Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

A family affair: Mothers, mothers in law and other relatives and their behaviour towards royal fertility
Ca. 1585. «Infanta Catalina Micaela». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Wandering womb
1665. «The Doctor`s Visit». Jan Steen © Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (Netherlands).

Posthumous birth: Life overcoming death
1554. Newborn Sebastian of Portugal from a manuscript by André Rodrigues de Évora ‘Sentenças para a ensinança e doutrina do príncipe D. Sebastião’, p. 31. Facsimile edition (Lisbon, 1983) of the unpublished manuscript of the Casa Cadaval © Banco Pinto and Sotto Mayor

Posthumous birth under suspicion
[N.d.]. Genealogy of Diego Manuel Dávalos y Aquino, 13th marquis of Pescara. He is the posthumous first-born and universal heir of Francisco María Dávalos, whose widow, Isabel Ana de Mendoza, had given birth seven months after his death. Salazar y Castro collection of the Spanish Royal Academy of History. 9/294, fol. 71v. Public Domain Mark 1.0:

Pregnancy and childbirth in the letters of Mariana de Austria
1651/1661. «Queen Maria Anna of Spain in a bright red dress». Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Ten privileges for pregnant women
16th Century. A woman giving birth, calling out to the Roman goddess Lucina («’Celestial diosa del parto, alma Lucina, / Principio y causa de todos los bien fecundos / que informas y conservas y perpetúas el mundo / Sé propicio para nosotros tu divina bondad’»). Four women are in attendance, one of them aged, with a stick. Giulio Antonio Bonasone. © Wellcome Collection. (CC BY 4.0)

Days and months
1628. Book frontispiece of ‘Disputatio de vera humani partus naturalis et legitimi designatione’. Alphonsi a Carranza, Madrid (Spain)

From the womb: Communication with the outside world
1667. Letter from Margarita to Leopoldo I. ÖSTA HHStA HausA Familienkorrespondenz A 55-14, fol. 142-143 © Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna (Austria). Letter found by Laura Oliván

A nun who ruled in delivery rooms: Mariana de Jesús and the midwife Inés de Ayala
1624. Funerary mask of Blessed Mariana de Jesus. Madrid (Spain), Convent of MM. Mercedarias de Don Juan de Alarcón. [Taken from Curros y Ares, M.A., ‘Mercedarian Mothers of Don Juan de Alarcón’, vol. II (Catalogue of Sculpture), Madrid, Order of Our Lady of Mercy, 1988.]

Food for pregnancy and birth
Ca. 1528. «The Birth of the Virgin». Ambrosius Benson © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Protective saints: Prints and relics
Between 1701 and 1800. Print of Saint Raymond Nonnatus. INVENT/30066. Unknown author © National Library of Spain, ‘Hispánica Digital Library’

To deliver with good forces
1237. Delivery in an Arab household. Yahya ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti. In ‘Maqamat of al-Hariri’. Arab manuscript 5847, fol.122v © ‘Bibliothèque Nationale de France’, Paris. According to Antonio Arjona Castro (1983) «until recent times, babies were delivered in this position in some rural areas of Andalucía»

The delivery chair
1580. Childbirth chair or seat, illustration included in the book entitled ‘Human childbirth, which contains very useful and usual remedies for difficult childbirth in women, with many other secrets pertaining to it’ by Francisco Núñez

Born with a caul
Ca. 1800. Foetus in amniotic in uterus. Wax tabled used as didactic material © Wellcome Trust Collection, Science Museum, London (UK). (CC BY 4.0)

«Si mater in partu moritur, incidatur»: The postmortem caesarean section
Left: 1401-1500. The Birth of Julius Caesar. Faits des Romains, Paul Orose. BnF, fr. 64 (1401-1500), f. 234r © Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. Right: 1364-1365. The Birth of Julius Caesar. Histoire ancienne jusqu'à César; Faits des Romains. Wauchier de Denain. BnF, fr. 246 (XIV sec.), f. 158r © Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris

Fathers and childbirth
Ca. 1633-1635. «Nacimiento de san Juan Bautista». Artemisa de Gentileschi © Museo del Prado, Madrid

Swaddling newborns in the Golden Age
Ca. 1645. «The Newborn Child». Georges de La Tour © Musée des Beaux Arts, Rennes (France)

Prophetic midwives
Ca. 1684. «The Midwife Lachesi». Pietro Bellotti © Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart (Germany)

The umbilical cords of the Harrach family
A photograph of Ernst Guido von Harrach’s umbilical cord. AVA FA Harrach © Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna (Austria)

Emergency baptism
1722. A new-born baby being baptised by a midwife in the mother's bedroom. Etching by Bernard Picart © Wellcome Collection (Public Domain)

Melancholy: Depression during pregnancy and in the postpartum period
Between 1532 and 1562. «Sadness and pain punishing Psyche». INVENT/6971. Dice Master, Michiel Coxcie, Antonio Salamanca © National Library of Spain-Hispanic Digital Library

Amulets against the «evil eye»
1602. «Infanta Anna of Austria». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Convento de las Descalzas Reales, Madrid (Spain)

Painted ‘ex-votos’
From left to right and from top to bottom: 1865, 1817, 1863, 1869-79, 1826 and 1825. Painted votive offerings (canvases and polychrome panels) offered to the Blessed Christ of the Battles. Church-Museum of San Sebastián de los Caballeros (Toro, Zamora, Spain). Photographs: Jesús Caramanzana. Top to down and left to right: Dangerous childbirth (a, b)., birth after abortion (c, d), postpartum period (e and f) © Jesús Caramanzana

Foundlings and notes of abandonment
1593. Note of abandonment of a foundling. «This child is christened; the name is Felipe, he is one month and a half old. The mother died in such a misery, that it became necessary to take this steep. He was kept alive with soup». Regional Archive of the Community of Madrid, Madrid, ‘Notas de de abandono’, 8657/13, No. 2/66. Photo: Lisa Heilig © Lisa Heilig

Death in childbed
Left: Ca. 1603/1609. «Queen Margarita of Austria-Styria», wife of Philip III of Spain. Bartolomé González © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria). Right: 1652. «Empress Maria Leopoldine of Austria», second wife of Ferdinand III. Lorenzo Lippi © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Midwives and emergency baptisms in a Salmantine parish (Spain, 1670-1730)
1510. A midwife administers emergency baptism to a newborn baby. Votive Image, 16th century; the image was reused for a similar vow at the end of the 18th century. Parish church Großgmain, Salzburg (Austria) Photo: Florian Bischof © Florian Bischof

Death as birth and birth as death
1586-1588. «The Burial of the Count of Orgaz». Dominikos Theotokopoulos ‘El Greco’ © Church of Santo Tomé, Toledo (Spain)

Birth spacing among commoners
Ca. 1787. «The baptism of Saint Francis». Zacarías González Velázquez. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Funerary monuments of mothers and children
Top: 1622, Elizabeth Williams’s funerary monument, Samuel Baldwin. Lady Chapel, Gloucester Cathedral, Gloucester (United Kingdom). Left: 1826, Cenotaph in memory of princess Charlotte of Wales, Matthew C. Wyatt. Saint George Chapel, Windsor Castle, Windsor (United Kingdom). Right: 1751, Tomb of Maria Magdalena Langhans, Johann August Nahl. Church of Hindelbank, Bäriswil, Bern (Switzerland)

Child mortality
1603. «Infanta Margaret of Austria in her coffin». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales, Madrid (Spain)

Grandmothers and grandchildren
1603. «The Birth of the Virgin». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

A female calendar
Ca. 1517. «The Visitation». Giulio Romano / Giovanni Francesco Penni © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

The goddess, the moon, and the weasel
Ca. 1521-1523. «Portrait of Lucina Brembati». Lorenzo Lotto © Fondazione Accademia, Carrara (Italy)

Dolls in the Spanish Golden Age: Playfully encouraging maternity
Left: 1584. «Portrait of a three-year-old girl». Isaac Claesz van Swanenburg © The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow. Right: 1550. The Younger, Christ blessing the children (detail). Lucas Cranach © Metropolitan Museum, New York (USA) (CC0)

Menarche and fertility of princesses: María Magdalena de Austria
1670. Medal showing a portrait of Anne of Medici, archduchess of Austria-Tyrol. Unknown author © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Royal menarche: a state affair
Ca. 1575/1550. Farmers calendar without text. Since the movable festivals are missing, the calendar was apparently not intended for a specific year. Xylogr. 42 a © Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich (Germany)

Fertility as a political weapon: Mariana de Austria
1646. «Archduchess Mariana of Austria», daughter of Ferdinand III. Frans Luycks © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain).

What was the average age of marriage for royal women in the Early Modern period?
Ca. 1616. «Wedding of Luis XIII, king of France and Navarre, and the infanta Anna of Austria». Jean Chalette. © Musée des Augustines-Musée de Beaux-Arts, Toulouse (France). Photo: Bernard Delorme © Bernard Delorme and Daniel Martin

Noble wedding in Begoña
1607. «Noble wedding in Begoña». Francisco de Mendieta y Retes © Geroztik Historia Museo Birtuala (Spain)

Marital excesses: María Manuela de Portugal
Ca. 1542. «Maria Manuela of Portugal», first wife of king Philip II of Spain. Unknown author © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Bucarophagy
1656. «The Family of Philip IV» or «’Las Meninas’» (detail). Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

A family affair: Mothers, mothers in law and other relatives and their behaviour towards royal fertility
Ca. 1585. «Infanta Catalina Micaela». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Wandering womb
1665. «The Doctor`s Visit». Jan Steen © Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (Netherlands).

Posthumous birth: Life overcoming death
1554. Newborn Sebastian of Portugal from a manuscript by André Rodrigues de Évora ‘Sentenças para a ensinança e doutrina do príncipe D. Sebastião’, p. 31. Facsimile edition (Lisbon, 1983) of the unpublished manuscript of the Casa Cadaval © Banco Pinto and Sotto Mayor

Posthumous birth under suspicion
[N.d.]. Genealogy of Diego Manuel Dávalos y Aquino, 13th marquis of Pescara. He is the posthumous first-born and universal heir of Francisco María Dávalos, whose widow, Isabel Ana de Mendoza, had given birth seven months after his death. Salazar y Castro collection of the Spanish Royal Academy of History. 9/294, fol. 71v. Public Domain Mark 1.0:

Pregnancy and childbirth in the letters of Mariana de Austria
1651/1661. «Queen Maria Anna of Spain in a bright red dress». Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Ten privileges for pregnant women
16th Century. A woman giving birth, calling out to the Roman goddess Lucina («’Celestial diosa del parto, alma Lucina, / Principio y causa de todos los bien fecundos / que informas y conservas y perpetúas el mundo / Sé propicio para nosotros tu divina bondad’»). Four women are in attendance, one of them aged, with a stick. Giulio Antonio Bonasone. © Wellcome Collection. (CC BY 4.0)

Days and months
1628. Book frontispiece of ‘Disputatio de vera humani partus naturalis et legitimi designatione’. Alphonsi a Carranza, Madrid (Spain)

From the womb: Communication with the outside world
1667. Letter from Margarita to Leopoldo I. ÖSTA HHStA HausA Familienkorrespondenz A 55-14, fol. 142-143 © Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna (Austria). Letter found by Laura Oliván

A nun who ruled in delivery rooms: Mariana de Jesús and the midwife Inés de Ayala
1624. Funerary mask of Blessed Mariana de Jesus. Madrid (Spain), Convent of MM. Mercedarias de Don Juan de Alarcón. [Taken from Curros y Ares, M.A., ‘Mercedarian Mothers of Don Juan de Alarcón’, vol. II (Catalogue of Sculpture), Madrid, Order of Our Lady of Mercy, 1988.]

Food for pregnancy and birth
Ca. 1528. «The Birth of the Virgin». Ambrosius Benson © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Protective saints: Prints and relics
Between 1701 and 1800. Print of Saint Raymond Nonnatus. INVENT/30066. Unknown author © National Library of Spain, ‘Hispánica Digital Library’

To deliver with good forces
1237. Delivery in an Arab household. Yahya ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti. In ‘Maqamat of al-Hariri’. Arab manuscript 5847, fol.122v © ‘Bibliothèque Nationale de France’, Paris. According to Antonio Arjona Castro (1983) «until recent times, babies were delivered in this position in some rural areas of Andalucía»

The delivery chair
1580. Childbirth chair or seat, illustration included in the book entitled ‘Human childbirth, which contains very useful and usual remedies for difficult childbirth in women, with many other secrets pertaining to it’ by Francisco Núñez

Born with a caul
Ca. 1800. Foetus in amniotic in uterus. Wax tabled used as didactic material © Wellcome Trust Collection, Science Museum, London (UK). (CC BY 4.0)

«Si mater in partu moritur, incidatur»: The postmortem caesarean section
Left: 1401-1500. The Birth of Julius Caesar. Faits des Romains, Paul Orose. BnF, fr. 64 (1401-1500), f. 234r © Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. Right: 1364-1365. The Birth of Julius Caesar. Histoire ancienne jusqu'à César; Faits des Romains. Wauchier de Denain. BnF, fr. 246 (XIV sec.), f. 158r © Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris

Fathers and childbirth
Ca. 1633-1635. «Nacimiento de san Juan Bautista». Artemisa de Gentileschi © Museo del Prado, Madrid

Swaddling newborns in the Golden Age
Ca. 1645. «The Newborn Child». Georges de La Tour © Musée des Beaux Arts, Rennes (France)

Prophetic midwives
Ca. 1684. «The Midwife Lachesi». Pietro Bellotti © Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart (Germany)

The umbilical cords of the Harrach family
A photograph of Ernst Guido von Harrach’s umbilical cord. AVA FA Harrach © Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna (Austria)

Emergency baptism
1722. A new-born baby being baptised by a midwife in the mother's bedroom. Etching by Bernard Picart © Wellcome Collection (Public Domain)

Melancholy: Depression during pregnancy and in the postpartum period
Between 1532 and 1562. «Sadness and pain punishing Psyche». INVENT/6971. Dice Master, Michiel Coxcie, Antonio Salamanca © National Library of Spain-Hispanic Digital Library

Amulets against the «evil eye»
1602. «Infanta Anna of Austria». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Convento de las Descalzas Reales, Madrid (Spain)

Painted ‘ex-votos’
From left to right and from top to bottom: 1865, 1817, 1863, 1869-79, 1826 and 1825. Painted votive offerings (canvases and polychrome panels) offered to the Blessed Christ of the Battles. Church-Museum of San Sebastián de los Caballeros (Toro, Zamora, Spain). Photographs: Jesús Caramanzana. Top to down and left to right: Dangerous childbirth (a, b)., birth after abortion (c, d), postpartum period (e and f) © Jesús Caramanzana

Foundlings and notes of abandonment
1593. Note of abandonment of a foundling. «This child is christened; the name is Felipe, he is one month and a half old. The mother died in such a misery, that it became necessary to take this steep. He was kept alive with soup». Regional Archive of the Community of Madrid, Madrid, ‘Notas de de abandono’, 8657/13, No. 2/66. Photo: Lisa Heilig © Lisa Heilig

Death in childbed
Left: Ca. 1603/1609. «Queen Margarita of Austria-Styria», wife of Philip III of Spain. Bartolomé González © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria). Right: 1652. «Empress Maria Leopoldine of Austria», second wife of Ferdinand III. Lorenzo Lippi © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Midwives and emergency baptisms in a Salmantine parish (Spain, 1670-1730)
1510. A midwife administers emergency baptism to a newborn baby. Votive Image, 16th century; the image was reused for a similar vow at the end of the 18th century. Parish church Großgmain, Salzburg (Austria) Photo: Florian Bischof © Florian Bischof

Death as birth and birth as death
1586-1588. «The Burial of the Count of Orgaz». Dominikos Theotokopoulos ‘El Greco’ © Church of Santo Tomé, Toledo (Spain)

Birth spacing among commoners
Ca. 1787. «The baptism of Saint Francis». Zacarías González Velázquez. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Funerary monuments of mothers and children
Top: 1622, Elizabeth Williams’s funerary monument, Samuel Baldwin. Lady Chapel, Gloucester Cathedral, Gloucester (United Kingdom). Left: 1826, Cenotaph in memory of princess Charlotte of Wales, Matthew C. Wyatt. Saint George Chapel, Windsor Castle, Windsor (United Kingdom). Right: 1751, Tomb of Maria Magdalena Langhans, Johann August Nahl. Church of Hindelbank, Bäriswil, Bern (Switzerland)

Child mortality
1603. «Infanta Margaret of Austria in her coffin». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales, Madrid (Spain)

Grandmothers and grandchildren
1603. «The Birth of the Virgin». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

A female calendar
Ca. 1517. «The Visitation». Giulio Romano / Giovanni Francesco Penni © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

The goddess, the moon, and the weasel
Ca. 1521-1523. «Portrait of Lucina Brembati». Lorenzo Lotto © Fondazione Accademia, Carrara (Italy)

Dolls in the Spanish Golden Age: Playfully encouraging maternity
Left: 1584. «Portrait of a three-year-old girl». Isaac Claesz van Swanenburg © The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow. Right: 1550. The Younger, Christ blessing the children (detail). Lucas Cranach © Metropolitan Museum, New York (USA) (CC0)

Menarche and fertility of princesses: María Magdalena de Austria
1670. Medal showing a portrait of Anne of Medici, archduchess of Austria-Tyrol. Unknown author © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Royal menarche: a state affair
Ca. 1575/1550. Farmers calendar without text. Since the movable festivals are missing, the calendar was apparently not intended for a specific year. Xylogr. 42 a © Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich (Germany)

Fertility as a political weapon: Mariana de Austria
1646. «Archduchess Mariana of Austria», daughter of Ferdinand III. Frans Luycks © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain).

What was the average age of marriage for royal women in the Early Modern period?
Ca. 1616. «Wedding of Luis XIII, king of France and Navarre, and the infanta Anna of Austria». Jean Chalette. © Musée des Augustines-Musée de Beaux-Arts, Toulouse (France). Photo: Bernard Delorme © Bernard Delorme and Daniel Martin

Noble wedding in Begoña
1607. «Noble wedding in Begoña». Francisco de Mendieta y Retes © Geroztik Historia Museo Birtuala (Spain)

Marital excesses: María Manuela de Portugal
Ca. 1542. «Maria Manuela of Portugal», first wife of king Philip II of Spain. Unknown author © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Bucarophagy
1656. «The Family of Philip IV» or «’Las Meninas’» (detail). Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

A family affair: Mothers, mothers in law and other relatives and their behaviour towards royal fertility
Ca. 1585. «Infanta Catalina Micaela». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Wandering womb
1665. «The Doctor`s Visit». Jan Steen © Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (Netherlands).

Posthumous birth: Life overcoming death
1554. Newborn Sebastian of Portugal from a manuscript by André Rodrigues de Évora ‘Sentenças para a ensinança e doutrina do príncipe D. Sebastião’, p. 31. Facsimile edition (Lisbon, 1983) of the unpublished manuscript of the Casa Cadaval © Banco Pinto and Sotto Mayor

Posthumous birth under suspicion
[N.d.]. Genealogy of Diego Manuel Dávalos y Aquino, 13th marquis of Pescara. He is the posthumous first-born and universal heir of Francisco María Dávalos, whose widow, Isabel Ana de Mendoza, had given birth seven months after his death. Salazar y Castro collection of the Spanish Royal Academy of History. 9/294, fol. 71v. Public Domain Mark 1.0:

Pregnancy and childbirth in the letters of Mariana de Austria
1651/1661. «Queen Maria Anna of Spain in a bright red dress». Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Ten privileges for pregnant women
16th Century. A woman giving birth, calling out to the Roman goddess Lucina («’Celestial diosa del parto, alma Lucina, / Principio y causa de todos los bien fecundos / que informas y conservas y perpetúas el mundo / Sé propicio para nosotros tu divina bondad’»). Four women are in attendance, one of them aged, with a stick. Giulio Antonio Bonasone. © Wellcome Collection. (CC BY 4.0)

Days and months
1628. Book frontispiece of ‘Disputatio de vera humani partus naturalis et legitimi designatione’. Alphonsi a Carranza, Madrid (Spain)

From the womb: Communication with the outside world
1667. Letter from Margarita to Leopoldo I. ÖSTA HHStA HausA Familienkorrespondenz A 55-14, fol. 142-143 © Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna (Austria). Letter found by Laura Oliván

A nun who ruled in delivery rooms: Mariana de Jesús and the midwife Inés de Ayala
1624. Funerary mask of Blessed Mariana de Jesus. Madrid (Spain), Convent of MM. Mercedarias de Don Juan de Alarcón. [Taken from Curros y Ares, M.A., ‘Mercedarian Mothers of Don Juan de Alarcón’, vol. II (Catalogue of Sculpture), Madrid, Order of Our Lady of Mercy, 1988.]

Food for pregnancy and birth
Ca. 1528. «The Birth of the Virgin». Ambrosius Benson © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Protective saints: Prints and relics
Between 1701 and 1800. Print of Saint Raymond Nonnatus. INVENT/30066. Unknown author © National Library of Spain, ‘Hispánica Digital Library’

To deliver with good forces
1237. Delivery in an Arab household. Yahya ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti. In ‘Maqamat of al-Hariri’. Arab manuscript 5847, fol.122v © ‘Bibliothèque Nationale de France’, Paris. According to Antonio Arjona Castro (1983) «until recent times, babies were delivered in this position in some rural areas of Andalucía»

The delivery chair
1580. Childbirth chair or seat, illustration included in the book entitled ‘Human childbirth, which contains very useful and usual remedies for difficult childbirth in women, with many other secrets pertaining to it’ by Francisco Núñez

Born with a caul
Ca. 1800. Foetus in amniotic in uterus. Wax tabled used as didactic material © Wellcome Trust Collection, Science Museum, London (UK). (CC BY 4.0)

«Si mater in partu moritur, incidatur»: The postmortem caesarean section
Left: 1401-1500. The Birth of Julius Caesar. Faits des Romains, Paul Orose. BnF, fr. 64 (1401-1500), f. 234r © Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. Right: 1364-1365. The Birth of Julius Caesar. Histoire ancienne jusqu'à César; Faits des Romains. Wauchier de Denain. BnF, fr. 246 (XIV sec.), f. 158r © Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris

Fathers and childbirth
Ca. 1633-1635. «Nacimiento de san Juan Bautista». Artemisa de Gentileschi © Museo del Prado, Madrid

Swaddling newborns in the Golden Age
Ca. 1645. «The Newborn Child». Georges de La Tour © Musée des Beaux Arts, Rennes (France)

Prophetic midwives
Ca. 1684. «The Midwife Lachesi». Pietro Bellotti © Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart (Germany)

The umbilical cords of the Harrach family
A photograph of Ernst Guido von Harrach’s umbilical cord. AVA FA Harrach © Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna (Austria)

Emergency baptism
1722. A new-born baby being baptised by a midwife in the mother's bedroom. Etching by Bernard Picart © Wellcome Collection (Public Domain)

Melancholy: Depression during pregnancy and in the postpartum period
Between 1532 and 1562. «Sadness and pain punishing Psyche». INVENT/6971. Dice Master, Michiel Coxcie, Antonio Salamanca © National Library of Spain-Hispanic Digital Library

Amulets against the «evil eye»
1602. «Infanta Anna of Austria». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Convento de las Descalzas Reales, Madrid (Spain)

Painted ‘ex-votos’
From left to right and from top to bottom: 1865, 1817, 1863, 1869-79, 1826 and 1825. Painted votive offerings (canvases and polychrome panels) offered to the Blessed Christ of the Battles. Church-Museum of San Sebastián de los Caballeros (Toro, Zamora, Spain). Photographs: Jesús Caramanzana. Top to down and left to right: Dangerous childbirth (a, b)., birth after abortion (c, d), postpartum period (e and f) © Jesús Caramanzana

Foundlings and notes of abandonment
1593. Note of abandonment of a foundling. «This child is christened; the name is Felipe, he is one month and a half old. The mother died in such a misery, that it became necessary to take this steep. He was kept alive with soup». Regional Archive of the Community of Madrid, Madrid, ‘Notas de de abandono’, 8657/13, No. 2/66. Photo: Lisa Heilig © Lisa Heilig

Death in childbed
Left: Ca. 1603/1609. «Queen Margarita of Austria-Styria», wife of Philip III of Spain. Bartolomé González © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria). Right: 1652. «Empress Maria Leopoldine of Austria», second wife of Ferdinand III. Lorenzo Lippi © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Midwives and emergency baptisms in a Salmantine parish (Spain, 1670-1730)
1510. A midwife administers emergency baptism to a newborn baby. Votive Image, 16th century; the image was reused for a similar vow at the end of the 18th century. Parish church Großgmain, Salzburg (Austria) Photo: Florian Bischof © Florian Bischof

Death as birth and birth as death
1586-1588. «The Burial of the Count of Orgaz». Dominikos Theotokopoulos ‘El Greco’ © Church of Santo Tomé, Toledo (Spain)

Birth spacing among commoners
Ca. 1787. «The baptism of Saint Francis». Zacarías González Velázquez. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Funerary monuments of mothers and children
Top: 1622, Elizabeth Williams’s funerary monument, Samuel Baldwin. Lady Chapel, Gloucester Cathedral, Gloucester (United Kingdom). Left: 1826, Cenotaph in memory of princess Charlotte of Wales, Matthew C. Wyatt. Saint George Chapel, Windsor Castle, Windsor (United Kingdom). Right: 1751, Tomb of Maria Magdalena Langhans, Johann August Nahl. Church of Hindelbank, Bäriswil, Bern (Switzerland)

Child mortality
1603. «Infanta Margaret of Austria in her coffin». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales, Madrid (Spain)

Grandmothers and grandchildren
1603. «The Birth of the Virgin». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

A female calendar
Ca. 1517. «The Visitation». Giulio Romano / Giovanni Francesco Penni © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

The goddess, the moon, and the weasel
Ca. 1521-1523. «Portrait of Lucina Brembati». Lorenzo Lotto © Fondazione Accademia, Carrara (Italy)

Dolls in the Spanish Golden Age: Playfully encouraging maternity
Left: 1584. «Portrait of a three-year-old girl». Isaac Claesz van Swanenburg © The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow. Right: 1550. The Younger, Christ blessing the children (detail). Lucas Cranach © Metropolitan Museum, New York (USA) (CC0)

Menarche and fertility of princesses: María Magdalena de Austria
1670. Medal showing a portrait of Anne of Medici, archduchess of Austria-Tyrol. Unknown author © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Royal menarche: a state affair
Ca. 1575/1550. Farmers calendar without text. Since the movable festivals are missing, the calendar was apparently not intended for a specific year. Xylogr. 42 a © Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich (Germany)

Fertility as a political weapon: Mariana de Austria
1646. «Archduchess Mariana of Austria», daughter of Ferdinand III. Frans Luycks © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain).

What was the average age of marriage for royal women in the Early Modern period?
Ca. 1616. «Wedding of Luis XIII, king of France and Navarre, and the infanta Anna of Austria». Jean Chalette. © Musée des Augustines-Musée de Beaux-Arts, Toulouse (France). Photo: Bernard Delorme © Bernard Delorme and Daniel Martin

Noble wedding in Begoña
1607. «Noble wedding in Begoña». Francisco de Mendieta y Retes © Geroztik Historia Museo Birtuala (Spain)

Marital excesses: María Manuela de Portugal
Ca. 1542. «Maria Manuela of Portugal», first wife of king Philip II of Spain. Unknown author © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Bucarophagy
1656. «The Family of Philip IV» or «’Las Meninas’» (detail). Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

A family affair: Mothers, mothers in law and other relatives and their behaviour towards royal fertility
Ca. 1585. «Infanta Catalina Micaela». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Wandering womb
1665. «The Doctor`s Visit». Jan Steen © Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (Netherlands).

Posthumous birth: Life overcoming death
1554. Newborn Sebastian of Portugal from a manuscript by André Rodrigues de Évora ‘Sentenças para a ensinança e doutrina do príncipe D. Sebastião’, p. 31. Facsimile edition (Lisbon, 1983) of the unpublished manuscript of the Casa Cadaval © Banco Pinto and Sotto Mayor

Posthumous birth under suspicion
[N.d.]. Genealogy of Diego Manuel Dávalos y Aquino, 13th marquis of Pescara. He is the posthumous first-born and universal heir of Francisco María Dávalos, whose widow, Isabel Ana de Mendoza, had given birth seven months after his death. Salazar y Castro collection of the Spanish Royal Academy of History. 9/294, fol. 71v. Public Domain Mark 1.0:

Pregnancy and childbirth in the letters of Mariana de Austria
1651/1661. «Queen Maria Anna of Spain in a bright red dress». Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Ten privileges for pregnant women
16th Century. A woman giving birth, calling out to the Roman goddess Lucina («’Celestial diosa del parto, alma Lucina, / Principio y causa de todos los bien fecundos / que informas y conservas y perpetúas el mundo / Sé propicio para nosotros tu divina bondad’»). Four women are in attendance, one of them aged, with a stick. Giulio Antonio Bonasone. © Wellcome Collection. (CC BY 4.0)

Days and months
1628. Book frontispiece of ‘Disputatio de vera humani partus naturalis et legitimi designatione’. Alphonsi a Carranza, Madrid (Spain)

From the womb: Communication with the outside world
1667. Letter from Margarita to Leopoldo I. ÖSTA HHStA HausA Familienkorrespondenz A 55-14, fol. 142-143 © Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna (Austria). Letter found by Laura Oliván

A nun who ruled in delivery rooms: Mariana de Jesús and the midwife Inés de Ayala
1624. Funerary mask of Blessed Mariana de Jesus. Madrid (Spain), Convent of MM. Mercedarias de Don Juan de Alarcón. [Taken from Curros y Ares, M.A., ‘Mercedarian Mothers of Don Juan de Alarcón’, vol. II (Catalogue of Sculpture), Madrid, Order of Our Lady of Mercy, 1988.]

Food for pregnancy and birth
Ca. 1528. «The Birth of the Virgin». Ambrosius Benson © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Protective saints: Prints and relics
Between 1701 and 1800. Print of Saint Raymond Nonnatus. INVENT/30066. Unknown author © National Library of Spain, ‘Hispánica Digital Library’

To deliver with good forces
1237. Delivery in an Arab household. Yahya ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti. In ‘Maqamat of al-Hariri’. Arab manuscript 5847, fol.122v © ‘Bibliothèque Nationale de France’, Paris. According to Antonio Arjona Castro (1983) «until recent times, babies were delivered in this position in some rural areas of Andalucía»

The delivery chair
1580. Childbirth chair or seat, illustration included in the book entitled ‘Human childbirth, which contains very useful and usual remedies for difficult childbirth in women, with many other secrets pertaining to it’ by Francisco Núñez

Born with a caul
Ca. 1800. Foetus in amniotic in uterus. Wax tabled used as didactic material © Wellcome Trust Collection, Science Museum, London (UK). (CC BY 4.0)

«Si mater in partu moritur, incidatur»: The postmortem caesarean section
Left: 1401-1500. The Birth of Julius Caesar. Faits des Romains, Paul Orose. BnF, fr. 64 (1401-1500), f. 234r © Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. Right: 1364-1365. The Birth of Julius Caesar. Histoire ancienne jusqu'à César; Faits des Romains. Wauchier de Denain. BnF, fr. 246 (XIV sec.), f. 158r © Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris

Fathers and childbirth
Ca. 1633-1635. «Nacimiento de san Juan Bautista». Artemisa de Gentileschi © Museo del Prado, Madrid

Swaddling newborns in the Golden Age
Ca. 1645. «The Newborn Child». Georges de La Tour © Musée des Beaux Arts, Rennes (France)

Prophetic midwives
Ca. 1684. «The Midwife Lachesi». Pietro Bellotti © Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart (Germany)

The umbilical cords of the Harrach family
A photograph of Ernst Guido von Harrach’s umbilical cord. AVA FA Harrach © Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna (Austria)

Emergency baptism
1722. A new-born baby being baptised by a midwife in the mother's bedroom. Etching by Bernard Picart © Wellcome Collection (Public Domain)

Melancholy: Depression during pregnancy and in the postpartum period
Between 1532 and 1562. «Sadness and pain punishing Psyche». INVENT/6971. Dice Master, Michiel Coxcie, Antonio Salamanca © National Library of Spain-Hispanic Digital Library

Amulets against the «evil eye»
1602. «Infanta Anna of Austria». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Convento de las Descalzas Reales, Madrid (Spain)

Painted ‘ex-votos’
From left to right and from top to bottom: 1865, 1817, 1863, 1869-79, 1826 and 1825. Painted votive offerings (canvases and polychrome panels) offered to the Blessed Christ of the Battles. Church-Museum of San Sebastián de los Caballeros (Toro, Zamora, Spain). Photographs: Jesús Caramanzana. Top to down and left to right: Dangerous childbirth (a, b)., birth after abortion (c, d), postpartum period (e and f) © Jesús Caramanzana

Foundlings and notes of abandonment
1593. Note of abandonment of a foundling. «This child is christened; the name is Felipe, he is one month and a half old. The mother died in such a misery, that it became necessary to take this steep. He was kept alive with soup». Regional Archive of the Community of Madrid, Madrid, ‘Notas de de abandono’, 8657/13, No. 2/66. Photo: Lisa Heilig © Lisa Heilig

Death in childbed
Left: Ca. 1603/1609. «Queen Margarita of Austria-Styria», wife of Philip III of Spain. Bartolomé González © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria). Right: 1652. «Empress Maria Leopoldine of Austria», second wife of Ferdinand III. Lorenzo Lippi © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Midwives and emergency baptisms in a Salmantine parish (Spain, 1670-1730)
1510. A midwife administers emergency baptism to a newborn baby. Votive Image, 16th century; the image was reused for a similar vow at the end of the 18th century. Parish church Großgmain, Salzburg (Austria) Photo: Florian Bischof © Florian Bischof

Death as birth and birth as death
1586-1588. «The Burial of the Count of Orgaz». Dominikos Theotokopoulos ‘El Greco’ © Church of Santo Tomé, Toledo (Spain)

Birth spacing among commoners
Ca. 1787. «The baptism of Saint Francis». Zacarías González Velázquez. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Funerary monuments of mothers and children
Top: 1622, Elizabeth Williams’s funerary monument, Samuel Baldwin. Lady Chapel, Gloucester Cathedral, Gloucester (United Kingdom). Left: 1826, Cenotaph in memory of princess Charlotte of Wales, Matthew C. Wyatt. Saint George Chapel, Windsor Castle, Windsor (United Kingdom). Right: 1751, Tomb of Maria Magdalena Langhans, Johann August Nahl. Church of Hindelbank, Bäriswil, Bern (Switzerland)

Child mortality
1603. «Infanta Margaret of Austria in her coffin». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales, Madrid (Spain)

Grandmothers and grandchildren
1603. «The Birth of the Virgin». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

A female calendar
Ca. 1517. «The Visitation». Giulio Romano / Giovanni Francesco Penni © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

The goddess, the moon, and the weasel
Ca. 1521-1523. «Portrait of Lucina Brembati». Lorenzo Lotto © Fondazione Accademia, Carrara (Italy)

Dolls in the Spanish Golden Age: Playfully encouraging maternity
Left: 1584. «Portrait of a three-year-old girl». Isaac Claesz van Swanenburg © The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow. Right: 1550. The Younger, Christ blessing the children (detail). Lucas Cranach © Metropolitan Museum, New York (USA) (CC0)

Menarche and fertility of princesses: María Magdalena de Austria
1670. Medal showing a portrait of Anne of Medici, archduchess of Austria-Tyrol. Unknown author © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Royal menarche: a state affair
Ca. 1575/1550. Farmers calendar without text. Since the movable festivals are missing, the calendar was apparently not intended for a specific year. Xylogr. 42 a © Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich (Germany)

Fertility as a political weapon: Mariana de Austria
1646. «Archduchess Mariana of Austria», daughter of Ferdinand III. Frans Luycks © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain).

What was the average age of marriage for royal women in the Early Modern period?
Ca. 1616. «Wedding of Luis XIII, king of France and Navarre, and the infanta Anna of Austria». Jean Chalette. © Musée des Augustines-Musée de Beaux-Arts, Toulouse (France). Photo: Bernard Delorme © Bernard Delorme and Daniel Martin

Noble wedding in Begoña
1607. «Noble wedding in Begoña». Francisco de Mendieta y Retes © Geroztik Historia Museo Birtuala (Spain)

Marital excesses: María Manuela de Portugal
Ca. 1542. «Maria Manuela of Portugal», first wife of king Philip II of Spain. Unknown author © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Bucarophagy
1656. «The Family of Philip IV» or «’Las Meninas’» (detail). Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

A family affair: Mothers, mothers in law and other relatives and their behaviour towards royal fertility
Ca. 1585. «Infanta Catalina Micaela». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Wandering womb
1665. «The Doctor`s Visit». Jan Steen © Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (Netherlands).

Posthumous birth: Life overcoming death
1554. Newborn Sebastian of Portugal from a manuscript by André Rodrigues de Évora ‘Sentenças para a ensinança e doutrina do príncipe D. Sebastião’, p. 31. Facsimile edition (Lisbon, 1983) of the unpublished manuscript of the Casa Cadaval © Banco Pinto and Sotto Mayor

Posthumous birth under suspicion
[N.d.]. Genealogy of Diego Manuel Dávalos y Aquino, 13th marquis of Pescara. He is the posthumous first-born and universal heir of Francisco María Dávalos, whose widow, Isabel Ana de Mendoza, had given birth seven months after his death. Salazar y Castro collection of the Spanish Royal Academy of History. 9/294, fol. 71v. Public Domain Mark 1.0:

Pregnancy and childbirth in the letters of Mariana de Austria
1651/1661. «Queen Maria Anna of Spain in a bright red dress». Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Ten privileges for pregnant women
16th Century. A woman giving birth, calling out to the Roman goddess Lucina («’Celestial diosa del parto, alma Lucina, / Principio y causa de todos los bien fecundos / que informas y conservas y perpetúas el mundo / Sé propicio para nosotros tu divina bondad’»). Four women are in attendance, one of them aged, with a stick. Giulio Antonio Bonasone. © Wellcome Collection. (CC BY 4.0)

Days and months
1628. Book frontispiece of ‘Disputatio de vera humani partus naturalis et legitimi designatione’. Alphonsi a Carranza, Madrid (Spain)

From the womb: Communication with the outside world
1667. Letter from Margarita to Leopoldo I. ÖSTA HHStA HausA Familienkorrespondenz A 55-14, fol. 142-143 © Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna (Austria). Letter found by Laura Oliván

A nun who ruled in delivery rooms: Mariana de Jesús and the midwife Inés de Ayala
1624. Funerary mask of Blessed Mariana de Jesus. Madrid (Spain), Convent of MM. Mercedarias de Don Juan de Alarcón. [Taken from Curros y Ares, M.A., ‘Mercedarian Mothers of Don Juan de Alarcón’, vol. II (Catalogue of Sculpture), Madrid, Order of Our Lady of Mercy, 1988.]

Food for pregnancy and birth
Ca. 1528. «The Birth of the Virgin». Ambrosius Benson © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Protective saints: Prints and relics
Between 1701 and 1800. Print of Saint Raymond Nonnatus. INVENT/30066. Unknown author © National Library of Spain, ‘Hispánica Digital Library’

To deliver with good forces
1237. Delivery in an Arab household. Yahya ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti. In ‘Maqamat of al-Hariri’. Arab manuscript 5847, fol.122v © ‘Bibliothèque Nationale de France’, Paris. According to Antonio Arjona Castro (1983) «until recent times, babies were delivered in this position in some rural areas of Andalucía»

The delivery chair
1580. Childbirth chair or seat, illustration included in the book entitled ‘Human childbirth, which contains very useful and usual remedies for difficult childbirth in women, with many other secrets pertaining to it’ by Francisco Núñez

Born with a caul
Ca. 1800. Foetus in amniotic in uterus. Wax tabled used as didactic material © Wellcome Trust Collection, Science Museum, London (UK). (CC BY 4.0)

«Si mater in partu moritur, incidatur»: The postmortem caesarean section
Left: 1401-1500. The Birth of Julius Caesar. Faits des Romains, Paul Orose. BnF, fr. 64 (1401-1500), f. 234r © Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. Right: 1364-1365. The Birth of Julius Caesar. Histoire ancienne jusqu'à César; Faits des Romains. Wauchier de Denain. BnF, fr. 246 (XIV sec.), f. 158r © Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris

Fathers and childbirth
Ca. 1633-1635. «Nacimiento de san Juan Bautista». Artemisa de Gentileschi © Museo del Prado, Madrid

Swaddling newborns in the Golden Age
Ca. 1645. «The Newborn Child». Georges de La Tour © Musée des Beaux Arts, Rennes (France)

Prophetic midwives
Ca. 1684. «The Midwife Lachesi». Pietro Bellotti © Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart (Germany)

The umbilical cords of the Harrach family
A photograph of Ernst Guido von Harrach’s umbilical cord. AVA FA Harrach © Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna (Austria)

Emergency baptism
1722. A new-born baby being baptised by a midwife in the mother's bedroom. Etching by Bernard Picart © Wellcome Collection (Public Domain)

Melancholy: Depression during pregnancy and in the postpartum period
Between 1532 and 1562. «Sadness and pain punishing Psyche». INVENT/6971. Dice Master, Michiel Coxcie, Antonio Salamanca © National Library of Spain-Hispanic Digital Library

Amulets against the «evil eye»
1602. «Infanta Anna of Austria». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Convento de las Descalzas Reales, Madrid (Spain)

Painted ‘ex-votos’
From left to right and from top to bottom: 1865, 1817, 1863, 1869-79, 1826 and 1825. Painted votive offerings (canvases and polychrome panels) offered to the Blessed Christ of the Battles. Church-Museum of San Sebastián de los Caballeros (Toro, Zamora, Spain). Photographs: Jesús Caramanzana. Top to down and left to right: Dangerous childbirth (a, b)., birth after abortion (c, d), postpartum period (e and f) © Jesús Caramanzana

Foundlings and notes of abandonment
1593. Note of abandonment of a foundling. «This child is christened; the name is Felipe, he is one month and a half old. The mother died in such a misery, that it became necessary to take this steep. He was kept alive with soup». Regional Archive of the Community of Madrid, Madrid, ‘Notas de de abandono’, 8657/13, No. 2/66. Photo: Lisa Heilig © Lisa Heilig

Death in childbed
Left: Ca. 1603/1609. «Queen Margarita of Austria-Styria», wife of Philip III of Spain. Bartolomé González © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria). Right: 1652. «Empress Maria Leopoldine of Austria», second wife of Ferdinand III. Lorenzo Lippi © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Midwives and emergency baptisms in a Salmantine parish (Spain, 1670-1730)
1510. A midwife administers emergency baptism to a newborn baby. Votive Image, 16th century; the image was reused for a similar vow at the end of the 18th century. Parish church Großgmain, Salzburg (Austria) Photo: Florian Bischof © Florian Bischof

Death as birth and birth as death
1586-1588. «The Burial of the Count of Orgaz». Dominikos Theotokopoulos ‘El Greco’ © Church of Santo Tomé, Toledo (Spain)

Birth spacing among commoners
Ca. 1787. «The baptism of Saint Francis». Zacarías González Velázquez. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Funerary monuments of mothers and children
Top: 1622, Elizabeth Williams’s funerary monument, Samuel Baldwin. Lady Chapel, Gloucester Cathedral, Gloucester (United Kingdom). Left: 1826, Cenotaph in memory of princess Charlotte of Wales, Matthew C. Wyatt. Saint George Chapel, Windsor Castle, Windsor (United Kingdom). Right: 1751, Tomb of Maria Magdalena Langhans, Johann August Nahl. Church of Hindelbank, Bäriswil, Bern (Switzerland)

Child mortality
1603. «Infanta Margaret of Austria in her coffin». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales, Madrid (Spain)

Grandmothers and grandchildren
1603. «The Birth of the Virgin». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

A female calendar
Ca. 1517. «The Visitation». Giulio Romano / Giovanni Francesco Penni © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

The goddess, the moon, and the weasel
Ca. 1521-1523. «Portrait of Lucina Brembati». Lorenzo Lotto © Fondazione Accademia, Carrara (Italy)

Dolls in the Spanish Golden Age: Playfully encouraging maternity
Left: 1584. «Portrait of a three-year-old girl». Isaac Claesz van Swanenburg © The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow. Right: 1550. The Younger, Christ blessing the children (detail). Lucas Cranach © Metropolitan Museum, New York (USA) (CC0)

Menarche and fertility of princesses: María Magdalena de Austria
1670. Medal showing a portrait of Anne of Medici, archduchess of Austria-Tyrol. Unknown author © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Royal menarche: a state affair
Ca. 1575/1550. Farmers calendar without text. Since the movable festivals are missing, the calendar was apparently not intended for a specific year. Xylogr. 42 a © Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich (Germany)

Fertility as a political weapon: Mariana de Austria
1646. «Archduchess Mariana of Austria», daughter of Ferdinand III. Frans Luycks © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain).

What was the average age of marriage for royal women in the Early Modern period?
Ca. 1616. «Wedding of Luis XIII, king of France and Navarre, and the infanta Anna of Austria». Jean Chalette. © Musée des Augustines-Musée de Beaux-Arts, Toulouse (France). Photo: Bernard Delorme © Bernard Delorme and Daniel Martin

Noble wedding in Begoña
1607. «Noble wedding in Begoña». Francisco de Mendieta y Retes © Geroztik Historia Museo Birtuala (Spain)

Marital excesses: María Manuela de Portugal
Ca. 1542. «Maria Manuela of Portugal», first wife of king Philip II of Spain. Unknown author © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Bucarophagy
1656. «The Family of Philip IV» or «’Las Meninas’» (detail). Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

A family affair: Mothers, mothers in law and other relatives and their behaviour towards royal fertility
Ca. 1585. «Infanta Catalina Micaela». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Wandering womb
1665. «The Doctor`s Visit». Jan Steen © Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (Netherlands).

Posthumous birth: Life overcoming death
1554. Newborn Sebastian of Portugal from a manuscript by André Rodrigues de Évora ‘Sentenças para a ensinança e doutrina do príncipe D. Sebastião’, p. 31. Facsimile edition (Lisbon, 1983) of the unpublished manuscript of the Casa Cadaval © Banco Pinto and Sotto Mayor

Posthumous birth under suspicion
[N.d.]. Genealogy of Diego Manuel Dávalos y Aquino, 13th marquis of Pescara. He is the posthumous first-born and universal heir of Francisco María Dávalos, whose widow, Isabel Ana de Mendoza, had given birth seven months after his death. Salazar y Castro collection of the Spanish Royal Academy of History. 9/294, fol. 71v. Public Domain Mark 1.0:

Pregnancy and childbirth in the letters of Mariana de Austria
1651/1661. «Queen Maria Anna of Spain in a bright red dress». Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Ten privileges for pregnant women
16th Century. A woman giving birth, calling out to the Roman goddess Lucina («’Celestial diosa del parto, alma Lucina, / Principio y causa de todos los bien fecundos / que informas y conservas y perpetúas el mundo / Sé propicio para nosotros tu divina bondad’»). Four women are in attendance, one of them aged, with a stick. Giulio Antonio Bonasone. © Wellcome Collection. (CC BY 4.0)

Days and months
1628. Book frontispiece of ‘Disputatio de vera humani partus naturalis et legitimi designatione’. Alphonsi a Carranza, Madrid (Spain)

From the womb: Communication with the outside world
1667. Letter from Margarita to Leopoldo I. ÖSTA HHStA HausA Familienkorrespondenz A 55-14, fol. 142-143 © Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna (Austria). Letter found by Laura Oliván

A nun who ruled in delivery rooms: Mariana de Jesús and the midwife Inés de Ayala
1624. Funerary mask of Blessed Mariana de Jesus. Madrid (Spain), Convent of MM. Mercedarias de Don Juan de Alarcón. [Taken from Curros y Ares, M.A., ‘Mercedarian Mothers of Don Juan de Alarcón’, vol. II (Catalogue of Sculpture), Madrid, Order of Our Lady of Mercy, 1988.]

Food for pregnancy and birth
Ca. 1528. «The Birth of the Virgin». Ambrosius Benson © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Protective saints: Prints and relics
Between 1701 and 1800. Print of Saint Raymond Nonnatus. INVENT/30066. Unknown author © National Library of Spain, ‘Hispánica Digital Library’

To deliver with good forces
1237. Delivery in an Arab household. Yahya ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti. In ‘Maqamat of al-Hariri’. Arab manuscript 5847, fol.122v © ‘Bibliothèque Nationale de France’, Paris. According to Antonio Arjona Castro (1983) «until recent times, babies were delivered in this position in some rural areas of Andalucía»

The delivery chair
1580. Childbirth chair or seat, illustration included in the book entitled ‘Human childbirth, which contains very useful and usual remedies for difficult childbirth in women, with many other secrets pertaining to it’ by Francisco Núñez

Born with a caul
Ca. 1800. Foetus in amniotic in uterus. Wax tabled used as didactic material © Wellcome Trust Collection, Science Museum, London (UK). (CC BY 4.0)

«Si mater in partu moritur, incidatur»: The postmortem caesarean section
Left: 1401-1500. The Birth of Julius Caesar. Faits des Romains, Paul Orose. BnF, fr. 64 (1401-1500), f. 234r © Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. Right: 1364-1365. The Birth of Julius Caesar. Histoire ancienne jusqu'à César; Faits des Romains. Wauchier de Denain. BnF, fr. 246 (XIV sec.), f. 158r © Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris

Fathers and childbirth
Ca. 1633-1635. «Nacimiento de san Juan Bautista». Artemisa de Gentileschi © Museo del Prado, Madrid

Swaddling newborns in the Golden Age
Ca. 1645. «The Newborn Child». Georges de La Tour © Musée des Beaux Arts, Rennes (France)

Prophetic midwives
Ca. 1684. «The Midwife Lachesi». Pietro Bellotti © Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart (Germany)

The umbilical cords of the Harrach family
A photograph of Ernst Guido von Harrach’s umbilical cord. AVA FA Harrach © Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna (Austria)

Emergency baptism
1722. A new-born baby being baptised by a midwife in the mother's bedroom. Etching by Bernard Picart © Wellcome Collection (Public Domain)

Melancholy: Depression during pregnancy and in the postpartum period
Between 1532 and 1562. «Sadness and pain punishing Psyche». INVENT/6971. Dice Master, Michiel Coxcie, Antonio Salamanca © National Library of Spain-Hispanic Digital Library

Amulets against the «evil eye»
1602. «Infanta Anna of Austria». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Convento de las Descalzas Reales, Madrid (Spain)

Painted ‘ex-votos’
From left to right and from top to bottom: 1865, 1817, 1863, 1869-79, 1826 and 1825. Painted votive offerings (canvases and polychrome panels) offered to the Blessed Christ of the Battles. Church-Museum of San Sebastián de los Caballeros (Toro, Zamora, Spain). Photographs: Jesús Caramanzana. Top to down and left to right: Dangerous childbirth (a, b)., birth after abortion (c, d), postpartum period (e and f) © Jesús Caramanzana

Foundlings and notes of abandonment
1593. Note of abandonment of a foundling. «This child is christened; the name is Felipe, he is one month and a half old. The mother died in such a misery, that it became necessary to take this steep. He was kept alive with soup». Regional Archive of the Community of Madrid, Madrid, ‘Notas de de abandono’, 8657/13, No. 2/66. Photo: Lisa Heilig © Lisa Heilig

Death in childbed
Left: Ca. 1603/1609. «Queen Margarita of Austria-Styria», wife of Philip III of Spain. Bartolomé González © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria). Right: 1652. «Empress Maria Leopoldine of Austria», second wife of Ferdinand III. Lorenzo Lippi © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Midwives and emergency baptisms in a Salmantine parish (Spain, 1670-1730)
1510. A midwife administers emergency baptism to a newborn baby. Votive Image, 16th century; the image was reused for a similar vow at the end of the 18th century. Parish church Großgmain, Salzburg (Austria) Photo: Florian Bischof © Florian Bischof

Death as birth and birth as death
1586-1588. «The Burial of the Count of Orgaz». Dominikos Theotokopoulos ‘El Greco’ © Church of Santo Tomé, Toledo (Spain)

Birth spacing among commoners
Ca. 1787. «The baptism of Saint Francis». Zacarías González Velázquez. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Funerary monuments of mothers and children
Top: 1622, Elizabeth Williams’s funerary monument, Samuel Baldwin. Lady Chapel, Gloucester Cathedral, Gloucester (United Kingdom). Left: 1826, Cenotaph in memory of princess Charlotte of Wales, Matthew C. Wyatt. Saint George Chapel, Windsor Castle, Windsor (United Kingdom). Right: 1751, Tomb of Maria Magdalena Langhans, Johann August Nahl. Church of Hindelbank, Bäriswil, Bern (Switzerland)

Child mortality
1603. «Infanta Margaret of Austria in her coffin». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales, Madrid (Spain)

Grandmothers and grandchildren
1603. «The Birth of the Virgin». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

A female calendar
Ca. 1517. «The Visitation». Giulio Romano / Giovanni Francesco Penni © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

The goddess, the moon, and the weasel
Ca. 1521-1523. «Portrait of Lucina Brembati». Lorenzo Lotto © Fondazione Accademia, Carrara (Italy)

Dolls in the Spanish Golden Age: Playfully encouraging maternity
Left: 1584. «Portrait of a three-year-old girl». Isaac Claesz van Swanenburg © The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow. Right: 1550. The Younger, Christ blessing the children (detail). Lucas Cranach © Metropolitan Museum, New York (USA) (CC0)

Menarche and fertility of princesses: María Magdalena de Austria
1670. Medal showing a portrait of Anne of Medici, archduchess of Austria-Tyrol. Unknown author © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Royal menarche: a state affair
Ca. 1575/1550. Farmers calendar without text. Since the movable festivals are missing, the calendar was apparently not intended for a specific year. Xylogr. 42 a © Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich (Germany)

Fertility as a political weapon: Mariana de Austria
1646. «Archduchess Mariana of Austria», daughter of Ferdinand III. Frans Luycks © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain).

What was the average age of marriage for royal women in the Early Modern period?
Ca. 1616. «Wedding of Luis XIII, king of France and Navarre, and the infanta Anna of Austria». Jean Chalette. © Musée des Augustines-Musée de Beaux-Arts, Toulouse (France). Photo: Bernard Delorme © Bernard Delorme and Daniel Martin

Noble wedding in Begoña
1607. «Noble wedding in Begoña». Francisco de Mendieta y Retes © Geroztik Historia Museo Birtuala (Spain)

Marital excesses: María Manuela de Portugal
Ca. 1542. «Maria Manuela of Portugal», first wife of king Philip II of Spain. Unknown author © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Bucarophagy
1656. «The Family of Philip IV» or «’Las Meninas’» (detail). Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

A family affair: Mothers, mothers in law and other relatives and their behaviour towards royal fertility
Ca. 1585. «Infanta Catalina Micaela». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Wandering womb
1665. «The Doctor`s Visit». Jan Steen © Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (Netherlands).

Posthumous birth: Life overcoming death
1554. Newborn Sebastian of Portugal from a manuscript by André Rodrigues de Évora ‘Sentenças para a ensinança e doutrina do príncipe D. Sebastião’, p. 31. Facsimile edition (Lisbon, 1983) of the unpublished manuscript of the Casa Cadaval © Banco Pinto and Sotto Mayor

Posthumous birth under suspicion
[N.d.]. Genealogy of Diego Manuel Dávalos y Aquino, 13th marquis of Pescara. He is the posthumous first-born and universal heir of Francisco María Dávalos, whose widow, Isabel Ana de Mendoza, had given birth seven months after his death. Salazar y Castro collection of the Spanish Royal Academy of History. 9/294, fol. 71v. Public Domain Mark 1.0:

Pregnancy and childbirth in the letters of Mariana de Austria
1651/1661. «Queen Maria Anna of Spain in a bright red dress». Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Ten privileges for pregnant women
16th Century. A woman giving birth, calling out to the Roman goddess Lucina («’Celestial diosa del parto, alma Lucina, / Principio y causa de todos los bien fecundos / que informas y conservas y perpetúas el mundo / Sé propicio para nosotros tu divina bondad’»). Four women are in attendance, one of them aged, with a stick. Giulio Antonio Bonasone. © Wellcome Collection. (CC BY 4.0)

Days and months
1628. Book frontispiece of ‘Disputatio de vera humani partus naturalis et legitimi designatione’. Alphonsi a Carranza, Madrid (Spain)

From the womb: Communication with the outside world
1667. Letter from Margarita to Leopoldo I. ÖSTA HHStA HausA Familienkorrespondenz A 55-14, fol. 142-143 © Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna (Austria). Letter found by Laura Oliván

A nun who ruled in delivery rooms: Mariana de Jesús and the midwife Inés de Ayala
1624. Funerary mask of Blessed Mariana de Jesus. Madrid (Spain), Convent of MM. Mercedarias de Don Juan de Alarcón. [Taken from Curros y Ares, M.A., ‘Mercedarian Mothers of Don Juan de Alarcón’, vol. II (Catalogue of Sculpture), Madrid, Order of Our Lady of Mercy, 1988.]

Food for pregnancy and birth
Ca. 1528. «The Birth of the Virgin». Ambrosius Benson © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Protective saints: Prints and relics
Between 1701 and 1800. Print of Saint Raymond Nonnatus. INVENT/30066. Unknown author © National Library of Spain, ‘Hispánica Digital Library’

To deliver with good forces
1237. Delivery in an Arab household. Yahya ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti. In ‘Maqamat of al-Hariri’. Arab manuscript 5847, fol.122v © ‘Bibliothèque Nationale de France’, Paris. According to Antonio Arjona Castro (1983) «until recent times, babies were delivered in this position in some rural areas of Andalucía»

The delivery chair
1580. Childbirth chair or seat, illustration included in the book entitled ‘Human childbirth, which contains very useful and usual remedies for difficult childbirth in women, with many other secrets pertaining to it’ by Francisco Núñez

Born with a caul
Ca. 1800. Foetus in amniotic in uterus. Wax tabled used as didactic material © Wellcome Trust Collection, Science Museum, London (UK). (CC BY 4.0)

«Si mater in partu moritur, incidatur»: The postmortem caesarean section
Left: 1401-1500. The Birth of Julius Caesar. Faits des Romains, Paul Orose. BnF, fr. 64 (1401-1500), f. 234r © Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. Right: 1364-1365. The Birth of Julius Caesar. Histoire ancienne jusqu'à César; Faits des Romains. Wauchier de Denain. BnF, fr. 246 (XIV sec.), f. 158r © Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris

Fathers and childbirth
Ca. 1633-1635. «Nacimiento de san Juan Bautista». Artemisa de Gentileschi © Museo del Prado, Madrid

Swaddling newborns in the Golden Age
Ca. 1645. «The Newborn Child». Georges de La Tour © Musée des Beaux Arts, Rennes (France)

Prophetic midwives
Ca. 1684. «The Midwife Lachesi». Pietro Bellotti © Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart (Germany)

The umbilical cords of the Harrach family
A photograph of Ernst Guido von Harrach’s umbilical cord. AVA FA Harrach © Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna (Austria)

Emergency baptism
1722. A new-born baby being baptised by a midwife in the mother's bedroom. Etching by Bernard Picart © Wellcome Collection (Public Domain)

Melancholy: Depression during pregnancy and in the postpartum period
Between 1532 and 1562. «Sadness and pain punishing Psyche». INVENT/6971. Dice Master, Michiel Coxcie, Antonio Salamanca © National Library of Spain-Hispanic Digital Library

Amulets against the «evil eye»
1602. «Infanta Anna of Austria». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Convento de las Descalzas Reales, Madrid (Spain)

Painted ‘ex-votos’
From left to right and from top to bottom: 1865, 1817, 1863, 1869-79, 1826 and 1825. Painted votive offerings (canvases and polychrome panels) offered to the Blessed Christ of the Battles. Church-Museum of San Sebastián de los Caballeros (Toro, Zamora, Spain). Photographs: Jesús Caramanzana. Top to down and left to right: Dangerous childbirth (a, b)., birth after abortion (c, d), postpartum period (e and f) © Jesús Caramanzana

Foundlings and notes of abandonment
1593. Note of abandonment of a foundling. «This child is christened; the name is Felipe, he is one month and a half old. The mother died in such a misery, that it became necessary to take this steep. He was kept alive with soup». Regional Archive of the Community of Madrid, Madrid, ‘Notas de de abandono’, 8657/13, No. 2/66. Photo: Lisa Heilig © Lisa Heilig

Death in childbed
Left: Ca. 1603/1609. «Queen Margarita of Austria-Styria», wife of Philip III of Spain. Bartolomé González © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria). Right: 1652. «Empress Maria Leopoldine of Austria», second wife of Ferdinand III. Lorenzo Lippi © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Midwives and emergency baptisms in a Salmantine parish (Spain, 1670-1730)
1510. A midwife administers emergency baptism to a newborn baby. Votive Image, 16th century; the image was reused for a similar vow at the end of the 18th century. Parish church Großgmain, Salzburg (Austria) Photo: Florian Bischof © Florian Bischof

Death as birth and birth as death
1586-1588. «The Burial of the Count of Orgaz». Dominikos Theotokopoulos ‘El Greco’ © Church of Santo Tomé, Toledo (Spain)

Birth spacing among commoners
Ca. 1787. «The baptism of Saint Francis». Zacarías González Velázquez. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Funerary monuments of mothers and children
Top: 1622, Elizabeth Williams’s funerary monument, Samuel Baldwin. Lady Chapel, Gloucester Cathedral, Gloucester (United Kingdom). Left: 1826, Cenotaph in memory of princess Charlotte of Wales, Matthew C. Wyatt. Saint George Chapel, Windsor Castle, Windsor (United Kingdom). Right: 1751, Tomb of Maria Magdalena Langhans, Johann August Nahl. Church of Hindelbank, Bäriswil, Bern (Switzerland)

Child mortality
1603. «Infanta Margaret of Austria in her coffin». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales, Madrid (Spain)

Grandmothers and grandchildren
1603. «The Birth of the Virgin». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

A female calendar
Ca. 1517. «The Visitation». Giulio Romano / Giovanni Francesco Penni © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

The goddess, the moon, and the weasel
Ca. 1521-1523. «Portrait of Lucina Brembati». Lorenzo Lotto © Fondazione Accademia, Carrara (Italy)

Dolls in the Spanish Golden Age: Playfully encouraging maternity
Left: 1584. «Portrait of a three-year-old girl». Isaac Claesz van Swanenburg © The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow. Right: 1550. The Younger, Christ blessing the children (detail). Lucas Cranach © Metropolitan Museum, New York (USA) (CC0)

Menarche and fertility of princesses: María Magdalena de Austria
1670. Medal showing a portrait of Anne of Medici, archduchess of Austria-Tyrol. Unknown author © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Royal menarche: a state affair
Ca. 1575/1550. Farmers calendar without text. Since the movable festivals are missing, the calendar was apparently not intended for a specific year. Xylogr. 42 a © Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich (Germany)

Fertility as a political weapon: Mariana de Austria
1646. «Archduchess Mariana of Austria», daughter of Ferdinand III. Frans Luycks © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain).

What was the average age of marriage for royal women in the Early Modern period?
Ca. 1616. «Wedding of Luis XIII, king of France and Navarre, and the infanta Anna of Austria». Jean Chalette. © Musée des Augustines-Musée de Beaux-Arts, Toulouse (France). Photo: Bernard Delorme © Bernard Delorme and Daniel Martin

Noble wedding in Begoña
1607. «Noble wedding in Begoña». Francisco de Mendieta y Retes © Geroztik Historia Museo Birtuala (Spain)

Marital excesses: María Manuela de Portugal
Ca. 1542. «Maria Manuela of Portugal», first wife of king Philip II of Spain. Unknown author © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Bucarophagy
1656. «The Family of Philip IV» or «’Las Meninas’» (detail). Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

A family affair: Mothers, mothers in law and other relatives and their behaviour towards royal fertility
Ca. 1585. «Infanta Catalina Micaela». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Wandering womb
1665. «The Doctor`s Visit». Jan Steen © Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (Netherlands).

Posthumous birth: Life overcoming death
1554. Newborn Sebastian of Portugal from a manuscript by André Rodrigues de Évora ‘Sentenças para a ensinança e doutrina do príncipe D. Sebastião’, p. 31. Facsimile edition (Lisbon, 1983) of the unpublished manuscript of the Casa Cadaval © Banco Pinto and Sotto Mayor

Posthumous birth under suspicion
[N.d.]. Genealogy of Diego Manuel Dávalos y Aquino, 13th marquis of Pescara. He is the posthumous first-born and universal heir of Francisco María Dávalos, whose widow, Isabel Ana de Mendoza, had given birth seven months after his death. Salazar y Castro collection of the Spanish Royal Academy of History. 9/294, fol. 71v. Public Domain Mark 1.0:

Pregnancy and childbirth in the letters of Mariana de Austria
1651/1661. «Queen Maria Anna of Spain in a bright red dress». Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Ten privileges for pregnant women
16th Century. A woman giving birth, calling out to the Roman goddess Lucina («’Celestial diosa del parto, alma Lucina, / Principio y causa de todos los bien fecundos / que informas y conservas y perpetúas el mundo / Sé propicio para nosotros tu divina bondad’»). Four women are in attendance, one of them aged, with a stick. Giulio Antonio Bonasone. © Wellcome Collection. (CC BY 4.0)

Days and months
1628. Book frontispiece of ‘Disputatio de vera humani partus naturalis et legitimi designatione’. Alphonsi a Carranza, Madrid (Spain)

From the womb: Communication with the outside world
1667. Letter from Margarita to Leopoldo I. ÖSTA HHStA HausA Familienkorrespondenz A 55-14, fol. 142-143 © Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna (Austria). Letter found by Laura Oliván

A nun who ruled in delivery rooms: Mariana de Jesús and the midwife Inés de Ayala
1624. Funerary mask of Blessed Mariana de Jesus. Madrid (Spain), Convent of MM. Mercedarias de Don Juan de Alarcón. [Taken from Curros y Ares, M.A., ‘Mercedarian Mothers of Don Juan de Alarcón’, vol. II (Catalogue of Sculpture), Madrid, Order of Our Lady of Mercy, 1988.]

Food for pregnancy and birth
Ca. 1528. «The Birth of the Virgin». Ambrosius Benson © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Protective saints: Prints and relics
Between 1701 and 1800. Print of Saint Raymond Nonnatus. INVENT/30066. Unknown author © National Library of Spain, ‘Hispánica Digital Library’

To deliver with good forces
1237. Delivery in an Arab household. Yahya ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti. In ‘Maqamat of al-Hariri’. Arab manuscript 5847, fol.122v © ‘Bibliothèque Nationale de France’, Paris. According to Antonio Arjona Castro (1983) «until recent times, babies were delivered in this position in some rural areas of Andalucía»

The delivery chair
1580. Childbirth chair or seat, illustration included in the book entitled ‘Human childbirth, which contains very useful and usual remedies for difficult childbirth in women, with many other secrets pertaining to it’ by Francisco Núñez

Born with a caul
Ca. 1800. Foetus in amniotic in uterus. Wax tabled used as didactic material © Wellcome Trust Collection, Science Museum, London (UK). (CC BY 4.0)

«Si mater in partu moritur, incidatur»: The postmortem caesarean section
Left: 1401-1500. The Birth of Julius Caesar. Faits des Romains, Paul Orose. BnF, fr. 64 (1401-1500), f. 234r © Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. Right: 1364-1365. The Birth of Julius Caesar. Histoire ancienne jusqu'à César; Faits des Romains. Wauchier de Denain. BnF, fr. 246 (XIV sec.), f. 158r © Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris

Fathers and childbirth
Ca. 1633-1635. «Nacimiento de san Juan Bautista». Artemisa de Gentileschi © Museo del Prado, Madrid

Swaddling newborns in the Golden Age
Ca. 1645. «The Newborn Child». Georges de La Tour © Musée des Beaux Arts, Rennes (France)

Prophetic midwives
Ca. 1684. «The Midwife Lachesi». Pietro Bellotti © Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart (Germany)

The umbilical cords of the Harrach family
A photograph of Ernst Guido von Harrach’s umbilical cord. AVA FA Harrach © Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna (Austria)

Emergency baptism
1722. A new-born baby being baptised by a midwife in the mother's bedroom. Etching by Bernard Picart © Wellcome Collection (Public Domain)

Melancholy: Depression during pregnancy and in the postpartum period
Between 1532 and 1562. «Sadness and pain punishing Psyche». INVENT/6971. Dice Master, Michiel Coxcie, Antonio Salamanca © National Library of Spain-Hispanic Digital Library

Amulets against the «evil eye»
1602. «Infanta Anna of Austria». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Convento de las Descalzas Reales, Madrid (Spain)

Painted ‘ex-votos’
From left to right and from top to bottom: 1865, 1817, 1863, 1869-79, 1826 and 1825. Painted votive offerings (canvases and polychrome panels) offered to the Blessed Christ of the Battles. Church-Museum of San Sebastián de los Caballeros (Toro, Zamora, Spain). Photographs: Jesús Caramanzana. Top to down and left to right: Dangerous childbirth (a, b)., birth after abortion (c, d), postpartum period (e and f) © Jesús Caramanzana

Foundlings and notes of abandonment
1593. Note of abandonment of a foundling. «This child is christened; the name is Felipe, he is one month and a half old. The mother died in such a misery, that it became necessary to take this steep. He was kept alive with soup». Regional Archive of the Community of Madrid, Madrid, ‘Notas de de abandono’, 8657/13, No. 2/66. Photo: Lisa Heilig © Lisa Heilig

Death in childbed
Left: Ca. 1603/1609. «Queen Margarita of Austria-Styria», wife of Philip III of Spain. Bartolomé González © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria). Right: 1652. «Empress Maria Leopoldine of Austria», second wife of Ferdinand III. Lorenzo Lippi © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Midwives and emergency baptisms in a Salmantine parish (Spain, 1670-1730)
1510. A midwife administers emergency baptism to a newborn baby. Votive Image, 16th century; the image was reused for a similar vow at the end of the 18th century. Parish church Großgmain, Salzburg (Austria) Photo: Florian Bischof © Florian Bischof

Death as birth and birth as death
1586-1588. «The Burial of the Count of Orgaz». Dominikos Theotokopoulos ‘El Greco’ © Church of Santo Tomé, Toledo (Spain)

Birth spacing among commoners
Ca. 1787. «The baptism of Saint Francis». Zacarías González Velázquez. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Funerary monuments of mothers and children
Top: 1622, Elizabeth Williams’s funerary monument, Samuel Baldwin. Lady Chapel, Gloucester Cathedral, Gloucester (United Kingdom). Left: 1826, Cenotaph in memory of princess Charlotte of Wales, Matthew C. Wyatt. Saint George Chapel, Windsor Castle, Windsor (United Kingdom). Right: 1751, Tomb of Maria Magdalena Langhans, Johann August Nahl. Church of Hindelbank, Bäriswil, Bern (Switzerland)

Child mortality
1603. «Infanta Margaret of Austria in her coffin». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales, Madrid (Spain)

Grandmothers and grandchildren
1603. «The Birth of the Virgin». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

A female calendar
Ca. 1517. «The Visitation». Giulio Romano / Giovanni Francesco Penni © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

The goddess, the moon, and the weasel
Ca. 1521-1523. «Portrait of Lucina Brembati». Lorenzo Lotto © Fondazione Accademia, Carrara (Italy)

Dolls in the Spanish Golden Age: Playfully encouraging maternity
Left: 1584. «Portrait of a three-year-old girl». Isaac Claesz van Swanenburg © The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow. Right: 1550. The Younger, Christ blessing the children (detail). Lucas Cranach © Metropolitan Museum, New York (USA) (CC0)

Menarche and fertility of princesses: María Magdalena de Austria
1670. Medal showing a portrait of Anne of Medici, archduchess of Austria-Tyrol. Unknown author © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Royal menarche: a state affair
Ca. 1575/1550. Farmers calendar without text. Since the movable festivals are missing, the calendar was apparently not intended for a specific year. Xylogr. 42 a © Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich (Germany)

Fertility as a political weapon: Mariana de Austria
1646. «Archduchess Mariana of Austria», daughter of Ferdinand III. Frans Luycks © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain).

What was the average age of marriage for royal women in the Early Modern period?
Ca. 1616. «Wedding of Luis XIII, king of France and Navarre, and the infanta Anna of Austria». Jean Chalette. © Musée des Augustines-Musée de Beaux-Arts, Toulouse (France). Photo: Bernard Delorme © Bernard Delorme and Daniel Martin

Noble wedding in Begoña
1607. «Noble wedding in Begoña». Francisco de Mendieta y Retes © Geroztik Historia Museo Birtuala (Spain)

Marital excesses: María Manuela de Portugal
Ca. 1542. «Maria Manuela of Portugal», first wife of king Philip II of Spain. Unknown author © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Bucarophagy
1656. «The Family of Philip IV» or «’Las Meninas’» (detail). Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

A family affair: Mothers, mothers in law and other relatives and their behaviour towards royal fertility
Ca. 1585. «Infanta Catalina Micaela». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Wandering womb
1665. «The Doctor`s Visit». Jan Steen © Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (Netherlands).

Posthumous birth: Life overcoming death
1554. Newborn Sebastian of Portugal from a manuscript by André Rodrigues de Évora ‘Sentenças para a ensinança e doutrina do príncipe D. Sebastião’, p. 31. Facsimile edition (Lisbon, 1983) of the unpublished manuscript of the Casa Cadaval © Banco Pinto and Sotto Mayor

Posthumous birth under suspicion
[N.d.]. Genealogy of Diego Manuel Dávalos y Aquino, 13th marquis of Pescara. He is the posthumous first-born and universal heir of Francisco María Dávalos, whose widow, Isabel Ana de Mendoza, had given birth seven months after his death. Salazar y Castro collection of the Spanish Royal Academy of History. 9/294, fol. 71v. Public Domain Mark 1.0:

Pregnancy and childbirth in the letters of Mariana de Austria
1651/1661. «Queen Maria Anna of Spain in a bright red dress». Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Ten privileges for pregnant women
16th Century. A woman giving birth, calling out to the Roman goddess Lucina («’Celestial diosa del parto, alma Lucina, / Principio y causa de todos los bien fecundos / que informas y conservas y perpetúas el mundo / Sé propicio para nosotros tu divina bondad’»). Four women are in attendance, one of them aged, with a stick. Giulio Antonio Bonasone. © Wellcome Collection. (CC BY 4.0)

Days and months
1628. Book frontispiece of ‘Disputatio de vera humani partus naturalis et legitimi designatione’. Alphonsi a Carranza, Madrid (Spain)

From the womb: Communication with the outside world
1667. Letter from Margarita to Leopoldo I. ÖSTA HHStA HausA Familienkorrespondenz A 55-14, fol. 142-143 © Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna (Austria). Letter found by Laura Oliván

A nun who ruled in delivery rooms: Mariana de Jesús and the midwife Inés de Ayala
1624. Funerary mask of Blessed Mariana de Jesus. Madrid (Spain), Convent of MM. Mercedarias de Don Juan de Alarcón. [Taken from Curros y Ares, M.A., ‘Mercedarian Mothers of Don Juan de Alarcón’, vol. II (Catalogue of Sculpture), Madrid, Order of Our Lady of Mercy, 1988.]

Food for pregnancy and birth
Ca. 1528. «The Birth of the Virgin». Ambrosius Benson © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Protective saints: Prints and relics
Between 1701 and 1800. Print of Saint Raymond Nonnatus. INVENT/30066. Unknown author © National Library of Spain, ‘Hispánica Digital Library’

To deliver with good forces
1237. Delivery in an Arab household. Yahya ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti. In ‘Maqamat of al-Hariri’. Arab manuscript 5847, fol.122v © ‘Bibliothèque Nationale de France’, Paris. According to Antonio Arjona Castro (1983) «until recent times, babies were delivered in this position in some rural areas of Andalucía»

The delivery chair
1580. Childbirth chair or seat, illustration included in the book entitled ‘Human childbirth, which contains very useful and usual remedies for difficult childbirth in women, with many other secrets pertaining to it’ by Francisco Núñez

Born with a caul
Ca. 1800. Foetus in amniotic in uterus. Wax tabled used as didactic material © Wellcome Trust Collection, Science Museum, London (UK). (CC BY 4.0)

«Si mater in partu moritur, incidatur»: The postmortem caesarean section
Left: 1401-1500. The Birth of Julius Caesar. Faits des Romains, Paul Orose. BnF, fr. 64 (1401-1500), f. 234r © Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. Right: 1364-1365. The Birth of Julius Caesar. Histoire ancienne jusqu'à César; Faits des Romains. Wauchier de Denain. BnF, fr. 246 (XIV sec.), f. 158r © Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris

Fathers and childbirth
Ca. 1633-1635. «Nacimiento de san Juan Bautista». Artemisa de Gentileschi © Museo del Prado, Madrid

Swaddling newborns in the Golden Age
Ca. 1645. «The Newborn Child». Georges de La Tour © Musée des Beaux Arts, Rennes (France)

Prophetic midwives
Ca. 1684. «The Midwife Lachesi». Pietro Bellotti © Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart (Germany)

The umbilical cords of the Harrach family
A photograph of Ernst Guido von Harrach’s umbilical cord. AVA FA Harrach © Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna (Austria)

Emergency baptism
1722. A new-born baby being baptised by a midwife in the mother's bedroom. Etching by Bernard Picart © Wellcome Collection (Public Domain)

Melancholy: Depression during pregnancy and in the postpartum period
Between 1532 and 1562. «Sadness and pain punishing Psyche». INVENT/6971. Dice Master, Michiel Coxcie, Antonio Salamanca © National Library of Spain-Hispanic Digital Library

Amulets against the «evil eye»
1602. «Infanta Anna of Austria». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Convento de las Descalzas Reales, Madrid (Spain)

Painted ‘ex-votos’
From left to right and from top to bottom: 1865, 1817, 1863, 1869-79, 1826 and 1825. Painted votive offerings (canvases and polychrome panels) offered to the Blessed Christ of the Battles. Church-Museum of San Sebastián de los Caballeros (Toro, Zamora, Spain). Photographs: Jesús Caramanzana. Top to down and left to right: Dangerous childbirth (a, b)., birth after abortion (c, d), postpartum period (e and f) © Jesús Caramanzana

Foundlings and notes of abandonment
1593. Note of abandonment of a foundling. «This child is christened; the name is Felipe, he is one month and a half old. The mother died in such a misery, that it became necessary to take this steep. He was kept alive with soup». Regional Archive of the Community of Madrid, Madrid, ‘Notas de de abandono’, 8657/13, No. 2/66. Photo: Lisa Heilig © Lisa Heilig

Death in childbed
Left: Ca. 1603/1609. «Queen Margarita of Austria-Styria», wife of Philip III of Spain. Bartolomé González © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria). Right: 1652. «Empress Maria Leopoldine of Austria», second wife of Ferdinand III. Lorenzo Lippi © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, KHM-Museumsverband, Vienna (Austria)

Midwives and emergency baptisms in a Salmantine parish (Spain, 1670-1730)
1510. A midwife administers emergency baptism to a newborn baby. Votive Image, 16th century; the image was reused for a similar vow at the end of the 18th century. Parish church Großgmain, Salzburg (Austria) Photo: Florian Bischof © Florian Bischof

Death as birth and birth as death
1586-1588. «The Burial of the Count of Orgaz». Dominikos Theotokopoulos ‘El Greco’ © Church of Santo Tomé, Toledo (Spain)

Birth spacing among commoners
Ca. 1787. «The baptism of Saint Francis». Zacarías González Velázquez. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Spain)

Funerary monuments of mothers and children
Top: 1622, Elizabeth Williams’s funerary monument, Samuel Baldwin. Lady Chapel, Gloucester Cathedral, Gloucester (United Kingdom). Left: 1826, Cenotaph in memory of princess Charlotte of Wales, Matthew C. Wyatt. Saint George Chapel, Windsor Castle, Windsor (United Kingdom). Right: 1751, Tomb of Maria Magdalena Langhans, Johann August Nahl. Church of Hindelbank, Bäriswil, Bern (Switzerland)

Child mortality
1603. «Infanta Margaret of Austria in her coffin». Juan Pantoja de la Cruz © Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales, Madrid (Spain)