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Reviewed by:
  • Por Marcelo
  • María Morrás
Alonso de Cartagena . Por Marcelo. Agua y Peña 18. Ed. Andrea Baldissera. Lucca: Mauro Baroni Editore, 2003. 170 pp. index. append. bibl. €20. ISBN 88–820–9275–5.

Alonso de Cartagena is without doubt a crucial figure to understanding the literary scene of the first half of fifteenth-century Spain. Bishop of Burgos, member of the royal chancellary, and special ambassador to the king in Portugal and at the [End Page 225] Council of Basle, Cartagena had still time to produce the first direct translations from Latin classics since Alfonso X the Learned in the thirteenth century, to write several original treatises on chivalric and religious issues, to sustain a heated controversy on the new Aristotelian translations, and to sponsor the work of L. Bruni and other Italian humanists at the court of Juan II of Castile. Since O. Di Camillo's pioneer book (1975) drew attention to his activities and put him at the center of the flowering of letters in Castile, Cartagena's has become a regular name in every work dealing with Iberian humanism and the role of romance versions of classical authors in its shaping.

Baldissera's critical edition of Por Marcelo, one of the three Caesarean orations composed by Cicero, allows us to assess globally Cartagena's work as translator and reader of the Roman author, so meaningful when considering the beginning and development of humanism. After arguing cogently for Cartagena's atribution of Por Marcelo, Baldissera concentrates on the reasons for the letrado's selection of this title. As the editor cleverly points out, the small item combines a perfect exemplification of a political discourse — and accordingly, a solid display for élites and civil servants on the usefulness of mastering classical rhetoric — with the exposition of an image of goverment based on the practice of clementia and sapientia, as well as in the defense of peace, virtues much favoured by the prelate in his own work as a basis for civic coexistence and the running of the modern Castile. It can be, then, inferred that the text was directed to a large range of readers, although all of them connected to the court and the political affairs of the kingdom: the high nobility and the minor escriba or notary, but also the king as the discourse itself may be construed as a brief speculum principis, a conjecture that Baldissera could have reinforced in view of the codicological evidence.

Moreover, Cartagena's interest in Por Marcelo originates from the same didactic leanings which drew him to translate both Cicero's rhetorical treatise and two of his ethical dialogues: De inventione (La rethórica de M. T. Cicerón, ed. R. Mascagna, 1969), dedicated to prince Dom Duarte of Portugal, and the De senectute and De officiis (Los libros de Tulio: De los ofiçios. De senetute, ed. M. Morrás, 1996), translated because of the sweetness of their style that made them apt for a relaxed reading of the moral instruction they contained. In this respect, Por Marcelo is, as Cartagena himself labeled the latter, a mixed work (obra mesclada). This perspective colors, as one would expect, the way the text is translated into Spanish.

Part 2 is a painstaking analysis of the mode of translation which methodologically follows the lines established by this reviewer in her own edition of Cicero's ethical treatises translated by Cartagena, as the Italian scholar graciously acknowledges. His work confirms also that the inclusion of glosses in Cartagena's translations depends primarily on his consideration of the work translated as a rhetorical text, which the reader could approach and enjoy without help, or a didactic one, in need of marginal explanations, and not so much on the text's orthodox content from a Christian point of view. The last part of the introduction, [End Page 226] the edition itself, acccompanied by a reconstruction of the Latin discourse, and the notes are a model in their accuracy, rigor, and mastery of critical tecnique.

In fact, the whole edition is an example of both the best of philology (especially the learning of Italian philology) and literary criticism in its conciseness, originality, and...

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