HISTORICAL DICTIONARY A–Z - Spain and Portugal: A Reference Guide from the Renaissance to the Present - page 87

everywhere, from B ARCELONA to the Basque
provinces, not to mention C UBA , and
Amadeo decided to abdicate in February
1873. Ignoring protests that it was illegal
for him to do so without permission of the
Cortes, he promptly departed with his wife
and children (including a newborn son)
and returned to Italy. There he remained
for the rest of his comparatively short life.
Although some historically minded
commentators were struck by Amadeo's
resemblance to the long-departed Spanish
Habsburg kings (whose distinctive jaw he
inherited from his Austrian mother),
Amadeo had little else to recommend him
to the attention of Spain in a time of tur-
moil. Amiable but incapable of dramatiz-
ing his ideas or attracting popular support,
he quickly faded from the scene and was
soon forgotten.

Andalusia fell, until Granada alone retained
its political independence. After its annexa-
tion by C ASTILE in 1492, (see CONQUEST OF
G RANADA ) , Andalusia began to lose its lus-
ter, with only Seville and Cádiz retaining
prosperity through their commercial links
with the New World. Throughout later cen-
turies Andalusia has experienced periodic
revolts both from aristocratic opponents of
M ADRID and anarchist peasants seeking to
overthrow their semifeudal overlords. In
quieter times Andalusia's rich variety of
resources and the picturesque character of
its natural and human-made landscape
have continued to preserve the appeal of
this most distinctive of Spanish regions.

Andorra
This sovereign state, located in the eastern
Pyrenees between Spain and France, traces
her existence to a decree by Charlemagne
in the early ninth century. From 1278 to
1993 Andorra maintained a feudal tradition
of government under which the Spanish
bishop of Urgel and the French sovereign
(later the president of the republic) were
co-suzerains of the principality. Since 1993
Andorra has been governed through a
democratic parliamentary system. Among
the population 43 percent is of Spanish ori-
gin, and 33 percent is of native Andorran
descent, with the remainder of Portuguese
or French extraction. The total population
of nearly 70,000 represents a tenfold
increase since the mid-20th century, chiefly
attributable to business opportunities.
The official language is Catalan, and the
principal cultural, commercial, and tradi-
tional links are with Spain. The lofty moun-
tains and deep valleys that constitute most of
Andorra's territory have favored a pastoral

Andalusia (Andalucía)
Stretching across the whole southern width
of Spain, with an area of more than 33,000
square miles, Andalusia is as large as Portu-
gal. The size of this region reflects her long-
ago status as a separate kingdom. Included
within her boundaries are the modern
provinces of Almería, C ÁDIZ , C ÓRDOBA ,
G RANADA , Huelva, M ÁLAGA , and S EVILLE ,
whose very names recall the former glories
of Moorish Spain. Already a center of agri-
culture and trade in the days of the Romans,
the area that eighth-century Muslim con-
querors called al-Andalus generated a level
of artistic and intellectual activity that made
it a by-word for sophistication during the
Middle Ages. As the Christian reconquest of
Spain (R ECONQUISTA ) spread southward, the
Caliphate of the West, with its seat at Cór-
doba, and the other regimes located within