María José del Río Barredo, who holds a PhD in Geography and History, teaches Modern History at the Universidad Autónoma in Madrid. Her research has been focused on the cultural history of Madrid in the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries and on female court culture in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe. She has recently published articles and chapters of books on Catherine of Savoy, Anne of Austria, and the rituals of the viaticum in Habsburg Madrid. Her most important work is Madrid, Urbs Regia. La capital ceremonial de la Monarquía Católica (2000).