![[Pasted image 20250201183322.png]] The profits of European colonialism had a profound impact both in the Americas and back in Europe. An exchange of ideas, fueled and financed in part by New World commodities, began to connect European nations and to touch the parts of the world that Europeans conquered. In Spain, wealth from the Americas helped to fuel a golden age, the *Siglo de Oro*, when Spanish art and literature flourished. Riches poured in from the colonies, especially from the silver mines at Potosí in the Andes and [Zacatecas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zacatecas_(city)) in Mexico. New ideas poured in from other countries and new lands. The Hapsburg dynasty, which ruled a collection of territories including Austria, the Netherlands, Naples, Sicily, and Spain, patronized and financed the work of painters, sculptors, musicians, architects, and writers. One of this period’s most famous works is the novel *The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha*, by [Miguel de Cervantes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Cervantes). This two-volume book (1605 and 1618) told a colorful tale of an *[[Hidalgo]]* (a gentleman of humble birth) who had read so many tales of chivalry and knighthood that he became unable to tell reality from fiction. With his faithful sidekick Sancho Panza, Don Quixote left reality behind and set out to revive chivalry by doing battle with windmills that he perceived as the enemies of Spain. In addition to being absurd, the windmills were a clever reference to the United Provinces of the Netherlands, which had been involved in a decades-long war for independence from the Spanish Empire. --- Next: [[2.20 Protestant Reformation]] Back: [[2.18 African Slavery]]