The village of Cogolludo, in the mountainous countryside around 100 kilometres north-east of Madrid, holds a surprise for visitors. A theatrical square opens amidst a few houses, setting the stage for the ostentatious palace of the dukes of Medinaceli (Fig. 0.1). The palace, often celebrated as one of Iberia’s first Renaissance buildings, in fact resists temporal, geographical, and stylistic characterisation.1 It creates a sense of displacement that we have called the ‘Cogolludo effect’, a framework that offers a portal to this volume.