Alfonso X’s General Estoria at the dawn of Portuguese Renaissance. Study and transcription of a late fifteenth century fragment

Abstract

The existence of a Portuguese version of the General Estoria, probably produced around the late-xivth and early-xvth centuries, has been known through very few short and damaged fragments, found throughout the xxth century. The most recently found is a five-folio witness from the late-xvth/ early-xvith centuries preserved in the Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, Lisbon. In this article, I present a first transcription of this fragment. The linguistic elements of this Portuguese translation are considered, as well as the proximity or distance between the translation and its source. The main purpose of this paper is to make the text of the fragment available to the public and thus continue the research on the circulation of this major Alfonso X's work in Portugal.

Keywords

• General Estoria
• Medieval translation
• Portuguese Renaissance
• xvth century
• historiography
• literature