Luis De Lucena Repetición De Amores

UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA STUDIES IN THE ROMANCE LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES LUIS DE LUCENA REPETICIÓN DE AMORES edited by JACOB ORNSTEIN Gradúate School, Department of Languages and Literature United States Department of Agriculture THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS CHAPEL HILL NUMBER TWENTY-THREE 1954 1954 Copyright, 1954 The University of North Carolina Press Table of Contents INTRODUCTION Page Part I. General View of the Text and its Author 1 Part II. The Repetición de amores and the Feminist Debate 12 A Background and Orientation 12 B. Evolution of the Debate in Spain 14 1. Pro-Feminism — The Literature of the Defense 15 2. The Course of Anti-Feminism 20 C The Misogyny of Luis de Lucena 22 NOTES TO INTRODUCTION 101 NOTES TO TEXT 109 BIBLIOGRAPHYRAPHY 125 This page intentionally left blank PREFACE The present study was undertaken fifteen years ago at the Uni- versity of Wisconsin. Its publication after so long a period of time is indeed a source of personal satisfaction. At the same time, this broad span of years has permitted its writer to re-examine and revise various of his original views and interpretations. His hope is that it will be of some positive value and interest to students of early Span- ish literature in particular, and those of comparative Romance literatures in general. The writer wishes to express his special gratitude to Professor Lloyd Kasten, University of Wisconsin, and Professor Américo Cas- tro, Princeton University, for their unselfish assistance during the first phases of the study. Other individuals whose interest and sug- gestions have been extremely valuable include: Professor J. P. Heir- onomus, University of Wisconsin; Professor V.R.B. Oelschláger, Florida State University; Professors Alessandro Crisafulli and Hel- mut Hatzfeld, Catholic University; Professors Urban T. Holmes Jr. and John Keller, University of North Carolina. Finally, mention should be made of Misses Miriam Cass, Leah Smuckler, Laura Diaz, Mrs. Evelyn Cope, Dr. Philip K. Edwards, all of Washington, D. C., and Mr. Marvin Abernethy, Silver Spring, Md., who made contribu- tions, of mechanical nature and otherwise, in the preparation of this study. This page intentionally left blank INTRODUCTION This page intentionally left blank PART I GENERAL VIEW OF THE TEXT AND ITS AUTHOR As the most extensive anti-feminist document of early Spanish literature, the fifteenth century Repetición de amores, by Luis de Lu- cena, although largely neglected by scholars and merely mentioned in passing by literary historians has a unique significance.1 The present study has therefore been undertaken with the twofold object of determining the importance arid the implications of the Repetición de amores and of making available a critical edition of the text itself. The approach followed in the examination of Lucena's misogyny is a comparative one, with special reference to anti-feminism as manifested in the early literature of Catalonia, France and Italy. Although completely unrelated in subject, the Repetición de amores appeared together with a work on chess by the same author. The complete title reads: Repetición de amores: E arte de axedrez con CL juegos de partidos. The incunabulum bears no foliation; instead it contains a series of signatures for use in binding: a, aii, etc. Neither is there any indication of printer or place of publication/The present edition is based on photostats taken of the copy found in the British Museum. Other copies of the text are reported also in the Biblioteca Nacional of Madrid, the Library of J. Pierpont Morgan in New York, the Biblioteca Universitaria of Salamanca, the Escorial Library,2 and the United States Library of Congress. The author identifies himself in a prefatory note as: " .. hijo del muy sapientíssimo doctor y reverendo prothonothario, don Juan Remírez de Lucena, embaxador y del consejo de los reyes nuestros señores, .. estudiando en el preclaríssimo studio de la muy noble ciudad de Salamanca." In his dedication to his Arte de axedrez, he supplies the additional de- tail that he had traveled extensively in Italy, Spain, and France. That he was an expert in chess is apparent, and his work on the subject is mentioned in a number of histories and bibliographies of the game.3 The dating of the Repetición and the appended work on chess, which does not come within the purview of this investigation, can only be approximated. The most significant clue is provided by the dedication of the Arte de axedrez, which is addressed to Juan III. As Prince Juan died in 1497, a positive terminus ad quern is reached. The German historian of chess, von Heydebrand und der Lasa, fixes the terminus a quo at approximately the same year. He takes issue 2 REPETICIÓN DE AMORES with the usual date given in chess catalogues, which is 1495, arguing that Prince Juan could not have been more than sixteen years of age at that time, and, therefore, immature to receive a book on women and love. He believes that such a work might more logically have been presented to the prince in 1497, when the latter married Mar- guerite, daughter of the Hapsburg emperor, Maximilian. At any rate, the earliest date of the work's appearance is probably 1495, the latest 1497. A brief explanation is necessary regarding the peculiar form of writing represented by Lucena's text. The repetitio, or in Spanish, the repetición, as known to the universities of Lucena's time was a dis- course intended as an exhaustive study of a given topic, and prepared according to the strictest scholarly standards of the time. It was distinguished by its preeminently learned character, and by a con- siderable documentary appendage and citations from authorities. According to the statutes of the University of Salamanca, the repe- tición was required as an annual presentation of teaching doctors and maestros, bachelors with morning professorships of law, and candi- dates for the degree of licenciado. It was read at a formal ceremony, the expenses of which were paid by the writer himself. A great deal of pomp and ceremony attended the presentation, the general as- sembly room of the university being adorned with special tapestries and finery, the blast of trumpets and the roll of drums heralding the candidate's approach. Since there is no record of Lucena on the instructional staff, he probably submitted his work toward the licén- ciamiento, a second degree.4 There is much confusion about the genealogy of Luis de Lucena. Various literary historians have taken him to be the son of the hum- anist Juan de Lucena, author of the De vita beata, which was based on the Italian Bartolomeo Fazio's De felicitate vitae, as well as of the Epístola exhortataria a las letras. This supposition, however, is open to serious doubts, first raised by Pascual de Gayangos who believed that there were two Juan de Lucena's: one an "embajador de D. Juan el Segundo" and writer of the Vita beata, the other, Juan Ramirez de Lucena, "protonotario y embajador de los Reyes Católicos," per- haps father and son, respectively. Gayangos also makes reference to an opuscule entitled, De temperandis apud patres fidei vindices poenis haereticorum, apparently written by Juan Ramirez de Lucena of the court of the Catholic Kings, and which protested bitterly against the expulsion of the Jews.5 Paz y Melia, by contrast, is of the opinion that the author of the REPETICIÓN DE AMORES 3 Vita beata and the protonotario in the court of the Catholic Monarchs were one and the same person. He also notes: "Juan de Lucena fue de los Lucenas de Soria, persona principalísima y grave, hombre de muchas letras, docto en ambos derechos, protonotario apostólico, abad de Covarrubias y cronista de los Reyes Católicos, el cual labró desde sus cimientos las casas de los Leones de Soria..."6 It is appropriate to comment that several other works have been attributed to Luis de Lucena. One of these is the Tractado sobre la muerte de D. Diego de Acebedo, written about 1500.7 Another treatise sometimes attributed to him is the De tuenda pressertim a Peste in- tegra valitudine deque huius morbi remediis nec futilis ñeque con- tenendus Libellus.8 Concerning the latter, the attribution appears er- roneous since according to the Enciclopedia universal ilustrada,9 that work was written by a doctor named Luis de Lucena who was born in 1491. The birthdate alone, therefore, excludes the possibility that he and the writer of the Repetición were the same person. There is every reason to believe that Lucena was of Jewish origin. The writer of the De vita beata was a converso, and as such makes a spirited defense of the Hebrew people in his Vita beata through the medium of the interlocutor Alonso de Cartagena. Similarly, the "protonotario de Lucena" would scarcely have written a letter protesting the expulsion of a people so much in disfavor if he had not himself been Jewish. In addition, according to Serrano y Sanz, the name Lucena ranked as one of the most illustrious Jewish surnames in fifteenth century Spain.10 Although the details of Lucena's biography remain largely a mystery, there is no question about his solid humanistic background and his complete identification with the Spanish Renaissance. At- tending the University of Salamanca when this institution was a cen- ter where the interests of Spain's humanists converged, he could scarcely have remained unaffected by the potent intellectual stimuli everywhere about him. The role played by Salamanca in the Span- ish Renaissance is a topic too broad for the scope of this study, but mention should be made of its distinguished faculty, its seven thou- sand students, and the influence it exercised in a multiplicity of ways.

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