Janus. Estudios sobre el Siglo de Oro

An epitaph written by Francisco de Quevedo in Latin is edited, translated and commented on in this paper; it was dedicated to his friend Luis Carrillo y Sotomayor, and was published in 1611.

Although nobody has proved it by documentary evidence, critics usually date Montemayor's death in February 1561 in Piemonte. In parallel, the undated Milan edition of La Diana, printed during the author's lifetime with his participation, is usually dated in 1560. However, the textual evidence that this edition derives from the one printed in Barcelona, 1561 (colophon: January 21) makes it impossible to sustain that the writer died on the date usually accepted. We must think, rather, that this Diana was printed at the end of 1561 or the beginning of 1562, and that the writer probably died in February, but in 1562, rather than in 1561.

The Antifaristarco (1644), a work by the well-known Gongorist Martín de Angulo y Pulgar, contains a defence of Góngora in the form of diatribe against the censures
levelled at the poet by the Portuguese critic Manuel de Faría y Sousa. This work did not make it to the presses, as the author intended, and has therefore remained in
manuscript; and although there were many reports of its existence, until now it was unlocalised. This is a dense and extensive work, in which the arguments in favour of
Góngora cover the most burning issues of the Góngora controversy (obscurity, verba peregrina, tropes, transpositions and hyperbatos, etc.), with the peculiarity of doing so on the basis of Faría’s negative judgements and against his attempt to enthroning Camoens at the top of the poetic canon at the expense of Góngora. As the first approach to the Antifaristarco, this work is aimed at clarifying the main aspects of content and structure, purposes, dates of production and conclusion, and contextual framing, both in Angulo y Pulgar's trajectory and in the wider context of the Góngora controversy.

  The surrender of Breda in June 1625, after a nine-month siege by Habsburg forces under the command of Ambrogio Spinola, was one of the most celebrated events in the Eighty Years’ War and had extensive media impact at a time coinciding with the advent of modern journalism. The articles of capitulation were circulated in a plethora of news publications in different European countries, with both warring parties recounting and interpreting them in a favourable light. An analysis of these publications shows that embedded within a range of narratives are three different versions of the terms of surrender: one full copy based directly on the original documents, and two different partial summaries, one incorporating elements of hearsay and the other based on what would seem to have been the preferred redaction of Spinola’s field chancery and/or the Brussels court. This last version was tailored not primarily to counter enemy narratives, but to deny ammunition to elements within the Spanish monarchy hostile to Spinola’s concessions.

During the second half of the seventeenth century, a series of sermon collections, made by prestigious sacred orators from Peru’s viceroyalty, arrived to the Spanish peninsular coasts to be printed in peninsular typefaces. The analysis of its edition and distribution process, in which many agents were involved, helps to formulate questions about the birth of a hypothetical sacred Iberian Parnassus that was unified by the time that the Spanish Golden Age was in the scene, where by the role of the religious book market and the mandatory procedures for the approval of books in the Spanish crown was essential.

The poetry of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz has been analyzed by critics from multiple perspectives. However, in the last decades, the desire to rescue her figure has overlooked sometimes the convenience of maintaining certain philological rigor. In this work we review the excellent rhetorical construction of some of the compositions in which the Décima Musa describes women, that is to say, the descriptio puellae, through two spheres: the human and the divine. The principal objective of this paper is to outline, through the rhetorical analysis of this literary topic, a philological approach that insists on the poetic value of Sor Juana’s poetry and clears up the inaccuracies of biographical nature that have been drawn historically from such praises.

The article is dedicated to the study of the representation of paternal and maternal- filial relationships in the Italian romances of chivalry composed by Mambrino Roseo da Fabriano as prequels or sequels to the novels of the Spanish chivalric cycles. Specifically, the focus is on the formation of marital unions and the role that fathers and mothers –Christian kings and queens– play in choosing a husband for their daughters when stipulating a marriage contract. A comparative perspective, which considers the portrait of these family relationships drawn in Castilian novels, is meant to highlight the differences in the description of these family ties in Italian novels. The objective will be, then, to analyze how the family universe can be reinterpreted in the Italian context, and even from different narrative objectives.

Since the first edition of my book Emblemática Lusitana e os Emblemas de Vasco Mousinho de Castelbranco, in the year 2000, and in the subsequent ones in 2001, 2004 and 2005, I included a section dedicated to emblematic printers’ marks in Portugal, considering them a specific subject, until then scarcely studied individually, of emblematics lato sensu. This first essay towards the composition of a corpus, limited as it was because based exclusively on the extant historiography of the early typography of the country until the end of the sixteenth century, did not reach divulgation much beyond the lusophone circle. Having suceeded in enriching it for the later period thanks to research in other sources now more easily accessible, I thought it convenient to publish its results in English, aiming at a wider readership.

This article examines how Fernando de Herrera adopted in his lyrical poetry a model that he commented in Garcilaso de la Vega’s sonnet XXXIII and that he forged or at least contributed to consolidate in his Anotaciones a la poesía de Garcilaso (1580). We review what critics understand as ruins poetry in Golden Age poetry in general and in Herrera’s production in particular, after which we propose adapting Herrera’s corpus: in the first place, we propose to define it more precisely, reducing it in order to clarify what inspired Herrera, how he understood ruins poetry, and how he adapted it in different genres and stages of his career; in the second place, we propose to largen it metaphorically in order to analyze what moved Herrera to export to other contexts a system that he decisively contributed to shape.

The article aims to analyse a unique book written by the famous French friend of Lope de Vega: Simon Chauvel (Xabelo). The work is titled Sucessos en la pacificación de Francia que el Rey Christianissimo Luys XIII ha hecho, año 1620 y su jornada en Bearne and was published by the widow of Cosme Delgado in 1621. The study of the work starts from the bureaucratic paratext, paying special attention to the process of prior censorship in which, among others, Alonso Jerónimo de Salas Barbadillo is involved. The dedication to Queen Isabella of Bourbon, a text written in French by Chauvel, is then analysed, spotlighting the echoes established between the paratexts. The article proceeds to examine the Spanish verses by Simon Chauvel dedicated to the French ambassador François de Bassompierre. It also edits both the dedication to the queen and the verses offered to the ambassador. The body of Chauvel’s work is a relación de sucesos related to the pacification campaign in France by Louis XIII in 1620 and his campaign in Bearne against the Protestants. The two prologues by Chauvel are analysed, being the texts where the author expresses himself in the first person. Next, the translation by Chauvel is presented, along with the French source that has been found. Both relaciones are compared, and a set of criteria illustrating the translator's modus operandi is established. Finally, the article considers other shorter relaciones de sucesos published in Madrid, Lisbon, and Barcelona (1674) that contain fragments of the text translated by Simon Chauvel. The discovery of this book emphasizes Chauvel's role as a translator, poet, and expert in paratextual writing

This article analyzes the figure of Emanuel Sueyro (1587-1629), specifically his role as translator of Roman historians in Hispanic Flanders in the 17th century. To date we only know about his diplomatic work, little has been studied about his cultural production, despite being the author of an extensive historical work (Anales de Flandes, 1624) and having translated Latin works by historians such as Tacitus (1613), Sallust (1615) and Veleyus Paterculus (1630). His works were disseminated in the cultural circles of the 17th century, as demonstrated by the testimonies found that link him with Lope de Vega. Successive editions of his translations reflect that his Spanish versions by these Latin historians were widely accepted in the following century.

Coloquios militares by Fernán López Alfonso was written around 1571, but it remained handwritten to this day. This play shows the two retired soldiers’ vision of the court of Philip II in Madrid. The soldiers aspire to obtain some favor for have a position to maintain themselves. Throughout their walking through the Alcázar and various Madrid spaces, they will talk about the problems of their profession and life in that new court of Philip II, at the same time that they praise the figure of the king and the town itself. This article analyzes how criticism is combined with praise in a work that could have had an interest in the author's personal promotion, while pointing out its coincidences with other texts of the period with similar themes.

In Golden Age some of the blind devoted themselves to the creation of poetic broadsides. Like many other traditional singers, blind poets penned acconunts of events, comical poems, didactic and moral verses and religious compositions, among other texts. We focused on one of these blind poets: Francisco de Alfantega y Cortés, who worked in the time of Felipe IV. So far, some pliegos sueltos of this traditional singer were known, but the fact that he was blind was unknown, as it is not stated in his prints. Thanks to a trial of faith to which he submitted under the Court of the Inquisition in Toledo in 1639, previously unknown to historiography, we could have access to this information. Francisco de Alfantega specialised in the creation of accounts of events extolling the ideals of the Spanish Habsburgs, thus participating in the information industry and in the process that formed an incipient public sphere during the early Modern Age.

Antonio Alatorre for the first time pointed the italian source of Góngora’s sonnet «Pender de un leño...». This is the short story of his discovery.

Remembrance of the contribution of Professor María Cruz García de Enterría (1934-2021) to the study of 16th and 17th centuries Spanish Popular Literature, especially that which was printed in loose poetic sheets.

Review of Aurora Egido, "Don Quijote de la Mancha" o el triunfo de la ficción caballeresca, Madrid, Cátedra, 2023.

The fourth collective publication of the Pronapoli team is the magnificent book that we now have the pleasure of reviewing: Horatian Classicism in the Times of Garcilaso de la Vega, Bulletin Hispanique, Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux, 125-1, 2023. Eugenia Fosalba explains in the preface to such a compelling contribution to classical studies in relation to the work of the Toledan poet that statements about Garcilaso's poetry, such as those by Pietro Bembo, Paolo Giovio, and Girolamo Seripando, all agreeing on the excellence of his Horatianism, led its director to steer the second edition of the project “Garcilaso in Italy” in this direction. The objective was to understand the reason for this excellence (translated into the recognition of his suavitas or sweetness, typically Horatian), by studying the Italian, and especially Neapolitan, context that made it possible. However, it also seems indispensable to take into account the European tapestry in which the poet moved. In this regard, the simultaneous discovery during these investigations of two Latin odes by Garcilaso, unknown until now, which were unveiled at the Neapolitan congress (in April 2022, Università degli Studi Suor Orsola Benincasa), the origin of this book, is further proof of the profound accuracy of the orientation given to the new Garcilasian research directed by Eugenia Fosalba: on one hand, the aforementioned appearance of the ode in praise of Pietro Bembo and another ode dedicated to Johan Alexander Brancassius, discovered by Maria Czepiel, who analyzes in the volume the Horatian and Sannazarian sources in both works; the project's principal investigator, on the other hand, analyzes the meaning of the term suavitas, which, as explained by the great advocate of our poet in Naples, Girolamo Seripando, in his text dedicated to the Exequies of the Emperor (1559), has to do with the finest and most creative imitation proper to the orator, and not to the simple interpreter; the researcher also provides some Horatian sources not previously considered, in the opening of the Ode ad florem Gnidi, a source intertwined with Lyra I of Pontano, which replaces the river of the Venusian with the Tyrrhenian sea, here, like the Pontanian, stony, marble-like.

Review of: Inmaculada Casas-Delgado, Carlos M. Collantes Sánchez (coord.), La literatura de cordel en la sociedad hispánica (siglos XVI-XX), Sevilla, Editorial Universidad de Sevilla (Colección Literatura), 2022, 349 pp., ISBN: 978-84-472-2316-9

Review of Gennaro Schiano, “Llanto de Menardo” de Duarte Núñez de Acosta. Edición y estudio, Salamanca, SEMYR & SEHL, 2023.

The collective volume Humanismo y retórica visual compiles thirty-three papers presented at the XIV Congreso Internacional de la Sociedad Española de Emblemática, held in Alcañiz in 2023. The contributions focus primarily on the significance of visual rhetoric as a powerful tool for legitimizing authority, while also exploring its broader cultural and historical implications.