Giuseppe Galasso masterfully analyses the figure of Charles V (1500-1558), shedding new light on various aspects of the emperors personality and his reign, during which he asserted his dynastic legitimacy, restructured the Spanish state, established political and administrative centralisation, imposed his rule on the continent, governed a huge empire through a conservative and dynamic policy and made major changes to the ruling class. Charles V had to deal with the Italian states aspirations of independence, the Reformation and Turkish expansionism, but also faced the difficulty of governing such a vast and heterogeneous empire. However, he consolidated Spains dominant role, shifting away from the medieval and Germanic conception of the Holy Roman Empire and embracing a new, laic idea of the empire as a modern political power under the new Hapsburg dynasty. Drawing on historiography and returning to the emperors relationship with the Italian territories, Galasso proposes a new, more nuanced approach to Europe of the Modern Age.