Introducing fresh archival evidence, author Lisa Banner here demonstrates how Francisco Gómez de Sandoval y Rojas, first Duke of Lerma, served as a vital link in Habsburg architectural patronage. She traces Lerma's trajectory as, beginning with the ancient royal city of Valladolid, he embarked on a career of renovating or building religious foundations in various towns and cities around seventeenth-century Spain. The unintended consequence of his architectural patronage and involvement was to proliferate the distinctive royal architectural style developed under Philip II, which connected the foundations of Lerma indelibly with the traditions of noble patronage in Habsburg Spain. Biography: Lisa A. Banner is currently at work on a collection catalogue of Spanish drawings at the Princeton University Art Museum. She has published previously on seventeenth-century Spanish collecting, patronage and Habsburg architecture.