A new manuscript testimony of Quevedo’s letters addressed to the Jesuits Pedro Pimentel and Juan Antonio Velázquez

Abstract

The documental sources that contain the Quevedo’s correspondence that has reached us can mainly be found in the Biblioteca Nacional de España, the Archivo Histórico Nacional, the Hispanic Society of America, and the Biblioteca Menéndez Pelayo in Santander. The incorporation, over two years ago, of a new manuscript in the Biblioteca Nacional de España, has made this institution the one with the largest and of the highest quality collection of Quevedo’s letters: those addressed to Sancho de Sandoval (mostly holographs), to the Duke of Medinaceli and to Francisco de Oviedo, and now, those written to the Jesuits Pedro Pimentel and Juan Antonio Velázquez. There is a copy of these last letters in a manuscript of the Hispanic Society of America that was part of the library of Gregorio Mayans. According to the testimony that precedes these letters, they were copied from another manuscript. The incorporation, after going through two auctions, of a new manuscript in the Biblioteca Nacional de España with copies of these letters has risen the possibility that this new manuscript served as a model for that copy. The aim of this paper is to analyze this possibility by collating the content of both documents.