\"The diplomacy of letters of the Count of La Roca in Venice (1632-1642)\" en: Diana Carrió-Invernizzi (Dir.): Embajadores culturales. Transferencias y lealtades de la diplomacia española de la Edad Moderna, Madrid, UNED, 2016, pp. 187-204.

Juan Antonio de Vera, first Count of La Roca, was a key statesman for the Spanish Monarchy. A man with a strong humanistic education, he was also a prolific writer and a lover of poetry. Among other works, he authored the first treatise on the office of the ambassador ever written in Spanish, El Embajador (1620), soon translated in to French and Italian.  He was ambassador to Venice between 1632 and 1642, with the critical mission of securing the neutrality of the Serenissima in the European war in progress, the Thirty Years' War. While in Venice, he wrote and sent to print a number of works in a very difficult political and editorial context. The Serenissima was more favourable to France than to Spain in the battle for continental hegemonic power. Venice was also the main printing place and therefore of dissemination of ideas in Italy and an important communications hub between cultures. At the same time, editorial censorship was strong in the city. The Count was very much aware of all this and captured any possible opportunities to influence Venice through his literature. This activity required so much sophistication that most of the time he had to write under a pseudonym. This article traces the impact and consequences of the literary activity of the Count of La Roca, which proves to be an effective component of his diplomatic efforts in Venice. The aim is to explain how the Count of La Roca used his literature to raise his own profile as ambassador, the glory of his lineage and the reputation of the Spanish Monarchy overall.