Hispanic Manuscripts and Printed Books in the Barberini Collection (review)

BOOK REVIEWS JONES, HAROLD G. Hispanic Manuscripts and Printed Books in the Barberini Collection. 2 vols. Studi e Testi 280, 281. Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1978. Paper. 347, 419pp. Thanks to Nicolás Antonio scholars have been aware of the existence of the monumental Barberini Collection for quite some time. Thanks to this catalogue by Professor Jones we are now aware of what it contains insofar as Hispanic items are concerned. Volume I enumerates pertinent manuscript items. The 220 codices described are ordered sequentially by Barberini pressmark. Following are three complementary lists summarizing Barberini holdings of: (1) diplomatic correspondence; (2) letters to the Barberinis from their personal representatives in Spain, 1654-1705; and (3) general letters in Spanish to the Barberinis and others, 1610-1692. The indices to Volume I are particularly helpful as Jones gives us a first-line index for plays and another for poetry in addition to the usual author-title index. Volume II is an alphabetical (by author) listing of printed materials. Anonymous works are entered by title (usually: I did feel, however, that La mujer de Peribáñez should have been listed under the title rather than cross-referenced to, and described under, «Tres Ingenios»). Ample cross-references do eliminate the need for any general index. Both volumes contain solid bibliographies of references used. In his introduction to the first volume Jones notes that the entire collection is essentially a practical one, «a working library of reference tools to aid (Cardinal Francesco Barberini) in his position as Secretary of State. The books he actively sought are on contemporary history, politics and law, and on religious topics» (I, 12). While items dealing specifically with Spanish and Portuguese theatre, consequently, are not numerous, their quality is noteworthy . It is to these items that this review is addressed. In Volume I Professor Jones identifies 23 seventeenth-century manuscript copies of Spanish plays, five of which are either «uncited» or «presumed lost» (I, 15): Por amar, aborrecer and Quien guarda halla (Anon.), Dosflechas a un corazón (del Corral), M callarlo ni decirlo (Antonio Hurtado de Mendoza), and Las doncellas de Madrid (Sigler de Huerta). The remaining eighteen in83 84Bulletin ofthe Comediantes elude two other anonymous plays, two more each by Sigler and Hurtado, two each by Luis Vélez de Guevara, Quiñones de Benavente (entremeses), Tirso, and Villaizán y Garcés, and one each by Mira de Amescua, Enciso, Alarcón, and Gaspar de Avila. The quantity of printed plays noted in Volume II is more sizable. The Barberini collection of the Comedias escogidas series (1652-1704) lacks only partes 6 (both editions), 13, 18, 26, 41, and 44-48. All of the 25 Lopepartes are represented (in at least one edition) save the sixteenth, as are Calderón partes 1, 3, and 4. Miscellaneous single volumes are Simao Machado's Comediasportuguesas (1601), Valdivieso's Doze actos. ..y dos comedias (1622), Navarrete's Flor de saínetes (1640), Quiñones de Benavente's loco seria (1645), Rojas Zorrilla 's Parte 2a (1645), ana El mejor de los mejores libros... (Ma de Quiñones, 1653). I counted 38 separate comedias sueltas, most of which are contained in two factitious volumes (Stamp. Barb. KKK. VII, 32 and 33). In attempting to reconstruct the contents of these volumes I discovered that Jones has given the same pressmark/call number to sueltas of Calderón's La dama duende and La desdicha de la voz (VII, 32, int. 6), and again for Calderón's La banday laflor and Tirso's La condesa bandolera (VII, 32, int. 3). No internal number is assigned for item 718, Fiesta..., which includes the Fábula de Pico y Canente, although it is found within VII, 33. Apropos of this same item, the wording of Jones' comment that in its contents «There are also several entremeses and a loa by Antonio de Solís y Rivadeneira» (II, 158) is slightly misleading. Although they are not identified specifically, I assume he is referring to the play's loa, the Entremés de los Volatines (between Acts I and II), and the Entrem és de Juan Ranapoeta (between Acts II and III). Barrera attributes the...