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COMEDIA MANUSCRIPTS IN ROME JOHN V. FALCONIERI American University of Rome The close social, political, cultural and military relations between Italy and Spain, from mid-fifteenth century to the end of the seventeenth, are so well-known that it would be superfluous to describe even the most salient moments of this vital international intercourse. Particularly active in Rome and Italy were Church relationships (secular politics and military alliances included ) in ecclesiastical structures and theological considerations: the coming of Callixtus III, the cultural impetus of Alexander VI, Loyola's founding of the Company of Jesus, the establishment of the Collegio Romano, the Council in Trent and its aftermath, to name but a few. A natural consequence of these relationships was a reciprocal interest in the cultures of each country. In addition to human contacts, which were consistent and effective during these two and a half centuries, there was the exchange of vast amounts of books and manuscripts, and the printing of many Spanish books in Italy, particularly in Rome, Naples and Sicily. Spanish manuscripts on every imaginable subject are to be found everywhere in Italy, not only in the obvious collections of the Vatican Library and Jesuit or exJesuit holdings, but in remote towns throughout the peninsula and Sicily. Comedia manuscripts of considerable importance have been found in Rome, Parma, Naples, Bologna and elsewhere. We propose here a bibliographical analysis of the manuscripts to be found in the various archives of Rome, only. They are divided into two groups: those in the Barberini Collection of the Vatican Library and those found scattered throughout the city. Below is the description of the Barberini group (21 comedias and 2 entremeses) as a first 'instalment' to be followed at a later date with the description of the second group. The criteria used in the selection of the data for these brief bibliographical notations are 1) to establish authorship and textual integrity, where such are in doubt, 2) to juxtapose the identifying incipits and endings of manuscripts of the same comedia, if substantially different, 3) to indicate what is or has been 13 14Bulletin of the Comediantes the prime source for the attribution of authorship and /or authentic text- —hence, data after 1699 is almost always excluded as irrelevant, and 4) to furnish information on the performances of the plays. Surveyed in their totality one cannot but extrapolate certain generalities confirmed time and again in scholarly studies: the unreliability of the escogidas and other collections for the establishment of authors and texts (so often lamented by the playwrights themselves or their collaborators); the tenuous grounds upon which paternity of plays is often established; the need for the revision or reconstruction of plays. The Barberini Collection Among the most assiduous collectors of Spanish writings in Italy was the noble family of the Barberini. This family yielded up such superbly distinguished, capable and cultured statesmen, military men and prelates, that one is inclined to forgive the most famous of all of them, Maffeo, (Urban VIII) for his propensity to nepotism. One of the Pope's nephews, Francesco, later Cardinal, founded the renowned library that bears the family name. Long before the seventeenth century the library already counted over 30,000 books and 1 1 ,000 manuscripts—the entire holdings passed on to the Vatican at the beginning of the present century. The books were catalogued early and the bibliography published by the family itself.' The manuscripts were also carefully catalogued and laboriously indexed. Both the catalogue and the inventories are readily available at the Vatican. Their presence here has been known for several decades, all or in part, by A. Hamel, the present author, J. Fucilla, J. L. Gotor,2 V. Williamsen, and no doubt others; recently Prof. Jones has catalogued all the Spanish books and manuscripts in the collection. 3 The provenance of the comedias is unknown. They may have come as a group from Spain or been purchased by Cardinal Francesco during his visit to Spain as Papal emissary; but in all probability they were gathered over the years, from about 1625 to 1635 by the Barberini and, without exception, bound in parchment in Rome—an assumption based on the fact that they were bound...

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