Sales catalogue 54: H. P. Kraus

Date:
20th century
Reference:
WA/HMM/CM/Sal/39/3
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sales catalogue 54: H. P. Kraus. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    stanzas to each side of a foliated leaf, and all of the material is quite legible in a good Gothic hand of the XVth century. The luxury of only three strophes to one page— generally of eight lines each, although there are some of nine and ten—becomes apparent when we compare the manu- script with other Cancioneros of the same period. For example, the Ofiate- Castafieda compilation has approximately the same number of folios, but the poems appear in five stanzas on two columns to a page. The resulting cramped effect is common in routine manuscript preparation in Spain of the XVth century (D. Francisco R. de Uhagén, Un cancionero del siglo XV, facsimile facing p.50). Only when we come to the Cancionero de Stufiga, which was probably made in Naples for the library of the Aragonese Kings, do we find this ex- travagance of three stanzas to a page. There the space around each column was used for beautiful illuminated work (T. De Marinis, La biblioteca napo- letana dei Re d’Aragona, Il, p. 41; Ill, pl. 53). Our Cancionero does not have this illumination; still space has been left in certain compositions where illuminated capitals were to be supplied. Some of this space around the stanzas was utilized for notes in the same hand as the poems themselves— notes done with great care in a minute script. The Count of Haro died in 1470, which fact might possibly explain the unfinished appearance of the codex in these minor aspects. The manuscript is copied on paper of good quality bearing a hunting horn water mark of a type used in Rome around 1470 (Briquet 7834). According to Paz y Melia Fernandez de Velasco sometimes had manuscripts prepared for himself in Italy. ' The first third of the Velasco codex is made up by the Coplas and various sacred compositions of Pérez de Guzman, which are dedicated to Alvar Garcia de Santa Maria. Guzman’s Coplas are sometimes referred to as the Ssetecientas in emulation of the Trecientas of Juan de Mena, which are also in our collec- tion. Among the former appears the copla entitled De las enemistades (folio 35 v: “Muchas son las ocasiones...”), which seems to be unpublished. It is not found in the first printed collection of the Ssetecsentas done at Seville in 1516 by Jacob Cromberger, nor in the recent compilation of Foulché-Delbosc (Cancionero castellano del siglo XV, NBAE, XIX y XXII). The next group of poems is the Proverbsos of the Marqués de Santil- lana, with their usual introduction, the Laberinto de la fortuna (also called the Trecientas) of Juan de Mena, and a bit farther on, a very curious prose passage of some seven folios (1891-1951) which is an apocryphal series of two letters, very humanistic in tone, of a correspondence between Troilus and Briseis inspired, primarily, by the medieval Crémica troyana, These were added to a translation of Ovid’s Heroides, which has been attributed to Juan Rodriguez de la Camara (Menéndez y Pelayo, Amsologia, II, p. 219) and were published by Paz y Melia in his Obras de Juan Rodriguez de la Camara o del Padrén, Madrid, 1884. We have not found in any of the published collections or manuscripts consulted two poems by Diego del Castillo (237 1-243 Vv), who was active at the Aragonese court in Naples until shortly after the death of Alfonso V in 1458, at which time he was one of a number of Spaniards who returned to Spain bringing their bit of the Italian Renaissance culture with them. The first of his compositions, of 21 octavas, has the following preamble which alludes to the love affair between King Alphonso and Lucrezia d’Alagno: Sobre los amores del Rey dé Aragén con Madama Lucrecia antes que el rey moriese por madado del rey dow Ferrando loando los attos (sic) virtwosos entre ellos pasados. “Agora comence la dulce vihuela....” The second of these Neapolitan poems is composed in the double quintillas generally reserved for high-sounding occasional poetry. It begins, “Partenope la fulgente...” Since this poem laments the death of Alphonso, it should enable us to fix the date of composition of our manuscript between the years 1458 and 1470.
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