Leyendo los Quarenta cantos de Alonso de Fuentes: materialidad y estructura de la editio princeps de 1550

Abstract

In 1550 was printed in Seville, by Dominico de Robertis, the first edition of the Quarenta cantos de diuersas y peregrinas historias, declarados y moralizados por el magnifico cauallero Alonso de Fuentes. The analysis of the materiality and structure of the editio princeps of 1550, based on three preserved copies —two from the BNE in Madrid and one from the BnF in Paris— leads to questioning the observable tensions between social obligations, Romancero fashion, taste for History, cultural ambitions and imperatives of faith. Behind the evidence of a symbolically harmonious form that prioritizes the Bible, the examination of the structure of the Quarenta cantos reveals imbalances in favor of Roman history, and the material imperfections denounce a certain urgency, that of offering to the cultured public of mid-16th century Seville, an editorial product capable of promoting the already old but very fashionable «canto o romance», as a source for an historical and moral reflection.

Keywords

• Spanish Ballads
• 16th century
• Fuentes Alonso de
• print
• history