Pascual de Gayangos: A Nineteenth-Century Spanish Arabist (review)

Few would dispute that Pascual de Gayangos (1809–1897) was the foremost Spanish Arabist of the nineteenth century, and we are grateful to Cristina Alvarez Millán and Claudia Heide, the editors of this compilation of essays covering several aspects of his long career, and also to the foremost British publisher of Arabic/Islamic studies, for issuing it to coincide with the bicentenary of Gayangos's birth. This has been commemorated in Spain with the recent publication of Los Viajes Literarios de Pascual de Gayangos by Alvarez Millan and Alvarez Ramos. Perhaps, at some future date, a proper biography of Gayangos will be written in English: indeed, a decade ago this reviewer brought his name to the attention of the editors of the new Oxford D. N. B. as an important foreign figure well deserving inclusion; but the recommendation fell on stony ground.

Cristina Alvarez's partly biographical initial chapter; those by Manuela Marín on Gayangos's association with Reinhart Dozy; Richard Hitchcock on the English Context; Miguel Angel Alvarez Ramos on Gayangos the Scholarly Traveller; and – although slightly out of context – Marjorie Trusted on the relationship between the Victoria and Albert Museum and Juan Facundo Riaño, Gayangos's son-in-law, are all of interest and value. (Coincidentally, in 1878 Riaño edited the 5th edition of Richard Ford's Hand-Book for Travellers in Spain.) Whether the reader will glean as much from Andrew Ginger's paper entitled 'The Estranged Self of Spain: Oriental Obsessions in the Time of Gayangos', is doubtful; and whether it was sensible to reprint a truncated version of Harvey Gardiner's hard-to-find, half-century old article on Gayangos being 'Prescott's Most Indispensible Aide', without any indication of what the slight modifications might be, is open to question.

Gayangos is described by Alvarez Ramos as being far from a 'reclusive collector hiding in the ivory tower of the institutions to which he was attached'; indeed, he was an 'incorrigible "explorer" of his cultural past, and more importantly, he rescued it in order to put it at everybody's service', and his 'inquisitiveness was a constant drive throughout his long life'. His enthusiasm and generosity is confirmed by Thomas Glick, when outlining Gayangos's relationship with American Hispanists, and quoting Charles Sumner, who refers to him as being 'a great mouser in manuscripts, and says that he has some which would be very useful to Mr Prescott, and which are entirely at his service'. Without being fulsome, Ticknor (whose History of Spanish Literature Gayangos not only translated but also expanded), Prescott, Irving, and many others admitted wholeheartedly their indebtedness to his selfless efforts to assist them in any way he could, and not only while on his own extensive exploratory travels, investigating the contents of musty libraries, by no means an easy task in those of Spain. In some, condescendingly he was allowed to study the unclassified archives, but not permitted to make notes, copies, extracts, or summaries (which reminds the present reviewer of the occasion in Segorbe when, hoping to describe some highlights of the cathedral museum, he was curtly informed by the Cerberic guardian that he might take photographs, but not notes!).

Some of Gayangos's many correspondents were likewise able to help him considerably, as in the case of William Stirling, whose recommendation that he should be asked to undertake the compilation of a descriptive catalogue of Spanish manuscripts in the British Museum eventually paid off. Gayangos was a good friend, and long remained in contact with his literary acquaintances, often enquiring after them, although this was not reciprocated by George Borrow, however grateful he may have been for the information provided so open-handedly while composing The Zincali. We find Gayangos asking after Borrow in a letter received by Richard Ford on 8 January 1845, on which same day Ford wrote to Borrow to pass on the news it included...