Material Afterlives of the Conde Lucanor: Asynchrony in BNE, MS 17788

In 1860, the Spanish scholar Pascual de Gayangos published an anthology containing a new edition of the Conde Lucanor, the celebrated medieval frametale collection by Castilian author Juan Manuel. In preparation, Gayangos commissioned a transcription of the 1642 print edition of the Conde Lucanor, itself a reprint of the 1575 edition prepared by the Spanish humanist Gonzalo Argote de Molina. This transcription, Biblioteca Nacional de España, MS 17788, has received little critical attention due to its modernity and intermediary status. However, its textual and material histories illuminate the asynchrony of Gayangos’s editing practices, which combine cutting-edge philological methods with an amateur attempt to re-create the medieval past.