Las Cantigas de Santa Maria: Formas e imágenes (review)

This handsome volume in large-scale format (10 x 14 inches/24 x 36 cm) may weigh less than the run-of-the-mill coffeetable book, but it indeed measures up. Beautifully printed on glossy paper with text pages in double-column format, it contains an impressive –and necessary– number of full-color illustrations of the Cantigas de Santa Maria (CSM) miniatures, thankfully in their original size owing to the volume's generous size. After having been accustomed to seeing so many either black-and-white or reduced-in-size and poor-quality color reproductions of these stunningly complex miniatures, one can here truly grasp the beauty and detail of the rich varieties of thirteenth-century life commissioned by Alfonso X (el Sabio; 1221-1284, reigned 1252-1284) and produced by a team of anonymous artists in the royal scriptorium (or scriptoria).

The volume contains seven chapters, an index of the illustrations, a listing of all the manuscripts cited in the volume, and a single and extensive bibliographical listing of more than 30 pages that presents all revised and expanded studies. The principal work was carried out by Ana Domínguez Rodriguez, recently retired from the Department of Art History at Universidad Complutense, Madrid. It represents the more than thirty years she has devoted to the study of the miniatures of Alfonso's CSM. Pilar Treviño Gajardo, her collaborator and former student, has contributed throughout, most notably in chapter 2.

The introduction, while brief, addresses several interesting topics. Where were the scriptoria of Alfonso X located? Owing to the extensive royal presence in Seville, there was doubtless one there, with others possibly in Toledo and Murcia. A manuscript could have been composed in one place, copied and illuminated in another. It also discusses the artists who produced the CSM. Most of the miniaturists are anonymous; the only two names recorded appear in CSM 375 (Bonamic) and 377 (Pedro Lourenço). The many kinds of artists Alfonso employed often also worked for different patrons (ecclesiastic, civil, municipal). Another thread hinted at in this preface is the possibility of Almohad art in the CSM; this will be taken up in chapter 7 in greater detail.

Chapter 1, on the codices of the CSM and their chronology, establishes certain basic facts about the evolution of the CSM. The earliest form (though not the earliest surviving manuscript; it is a later copy) is a unique copy housed in Madrid's Biblioteca Nacional and known as To (from its former location in Toledo). It contains the 100 cantigas of the original collection, with music. There are a few dozen additional cantigas at the end, but the manuscript contains no miniatures. Of the other three manuscripts, two are in the Escorial library and the third is in Florence. These three were probably copied very closely together. Only one, in El Escorial and dubbed E, is complete. It contains 427 cantigas and is called "de los músicos", owing to the miniatures that illustrate the loores (songs of praise, numbered 10, 20, 30) with, normally, pairs of musicians, some singing; they often combine Christian and Moor in one miniature. The other Escorial manuscript of the CSM, T, and the Florentine manuscript, F, are two long-separated parts of a work known as the Códice Rico because of the richness of its illuminations. The cantigas are completely illuminated with either six or twelve miniatures (these latter on facing pages of cantigas ending in the numeral 5). T was designed for 200 cantigas but eight are missing; F, left incomplete at Alfonso's death, would have contained the other 200, instead of the 113 actually there. F has musical staves but no copied music. These two manuscripts, owing to datable historical events depicted, were probably copied in the late 1270s and into the 1280s (Alfonso died in 1284). The work of this volume is based, logically, on manuscripts T...