Juan de Torres in the context of the Cancionero de Palacio (SA7)

I came to the poetry of Juan de Torres through citations of his work as examples of rhetorical wit in Casas Rigall (1995]). The tantalizing fragments quoted there seemed to suggest that the visual was a privileged domain in his poetry, and that his treatment of it was central to his oeuvre rather than a banal echoing of a poetic commonplace. A consultation of the transcriptions in Dutton with Krogstad (1991: iv, 89, 93–96, 97, 101, 105–06, 121, 133–36, 178) and of the two published editions of the Cancionero de Palacio (SA7, compiled c.1437–42; 1945, 1993), in which most of his poetry appears, confirmed this reading, and so I proposed the topic of sight and the gaze for this essay in homage to Dorothy Sherman Severin.¹ I was dismayed and surprised, however, to find that Torres had not been subject to the kind of attention that I imagined that he should enjoy, and which, thanks to the work of Cleofé Tato, his Cancionero de Palacio peer Pedro de Santa Fe has recently received. Indeed, Palacio, despite the publication of a first critical edition over sixty years ago, through a peculiar distortion of literary historiography has yet to occupy the place it merits:

De haberse publicado en 1851 [date of the first edition of the Cancionero de Baena], hubiera sido muy distinta la historia de la crítica literaria de la poesía cancioneril. El Cancionero de Palacio es mucho más representativo del ambiente cortesano y de los gustos generales de la primera mitad del siglo xv.

(Dutton with Krogstad 1991: i, vi)

I shall therefore limit myself to some biographical remarks and preliminary observations about the implications of his poetry in Palacio. It is my contention that Torres, like Palacio, has been unjustly neglected in modern cancionero studies.

In many ways, Juan de Torres is neither remarkable nor much remarked upon. He has excited little scholarly attention. Other than the presence of the larger part of the corpus attributed to him in Palacio – 34 of his 38 compositions listed by Dutton with Krogstad (1991: 457), almost one-tenth of the cancionero's 367 poems – he seems to have made a only modest impression on the majority of his peers, and on subsequent cancionero poets and compilers. In fact, he is the poet with the second largest number of compositions in Palacio, exceeded only by Santa Fe, and no fewer than four of his poems were subject to citation by other poets. Of particular note is his inclusion among those trovadors (2004: 64, l.2) cited by Pere Torroella (c.1405–c.1486) as authorities on love in his Catalan quoting poem, 'Tant mon voler s'és dat a.mors' (ID3068):

lurs rahons trobe actoritatsen refermar les veritatsde mon ésser.²

(Torroella 2004: 64, ll.10–12)

Torroella's lyric-voice places the lines from the canción 'O maldida_(sic) fermosura' (ID1736) in Torres's mouth, as does the rubric, and notes their affective impact:

              E per ço dic ab veu fellona              ço que Johan de Torras rahona,              no sens tristura.Parla Johan de Torres              'O maldita fermosura,              gracia, sentir e beldat,              ¿qué fazéys en creatura              do no mora piedat?'

(2004: 82, ll.416–22)

The version given by Torroella differs slightly in the second line from that extant in Salamanca, Biblioteca Universitaria MS 2763 (c.1495; SA10a–45), the sole witness, which reads, 'sentido graçia bondad' (Dutton with Krogstad 1991: ii, 222), and suggests that in this case Torroella was either working from memory or knew a variant version or both. His citation by Torroella ranks Torres along with renowned poets writing in Castilian, such as Lope de Estúñiga, Alfonso Álvarez de Villasandino, Iñigo López de Mendoza (later Marqués de Santillana), Juan de Mena, Macías, and Juan de Dueñas, as well as Santa Fe. In my view, this suggests that Torres is certainly worthy of further attention, and that, like Santa Fe, may have been of more significance than we are now able to ascertain.

Juan de Torres is estimated to have been born in the first decade of the 15th century. Nicasio Salvador Miguel points out Torres's association with Castile and the difficulty in tracing the career of an individual with a relatively common name (1977: 231); indeed, Jane Whetnall's greater caution may be justified (2003: 296).³ Nonetheless, the view that our Juan de Torres accompanied Alfonso V on his voyage to Naples on 14 August 1432 has gone unchallenged. Whether or not this is the case, his poetic interest for the Aragonese court at Naples is borne out by the inclusion of a selection of different poems in manuscript cancioneros whose production and dissemination are linked with it, specifically Palacio (34 poems), the Cancionero de Stúñiga (1460–63; MN54; 2 poems), and the later Parisian cancioneros 'E' (PN8) and 'H' (PN12) (1 poem), which, like Stúñiga, descend from a common Castilian source copied and used as an exemplar in Naples, identified by Alberto Várvaro as a. It is highly likely that the poem attributed to Torres in Stúñiga that also appears in the Parisian manuscripts, was in a (Vozzo Mendia 1995). An unpublished study of the contents of Stúñiga, however, suggests that the attribution to Juan de Torres of the poem unique to Stúñiga, 'O temprana sepultura', may be suspect (Whetnall 2008).

Salvador Miguel argues that the poet Juan de Torres entered into the service of Álvaro de Luna, to whom he refers in his 'Non sabes, Juan de Padilla' (ID0142), and to whose 'Diz que más sabe'n su casa' (ID2583) one of his Palacio esparsas, 'La verdat está muy rasa' (ID2584), replies.⁴ Luna also cites Torres's '¡Ay, triste de mí!' (ID2480) in his Palacio canción, 'Porque de llorar' (ID2397). Salvador Miguel's account has Torres rising to hold the office of maestresala to King Juan II of Castile, who is also alluded to in 'Non sabes, Juan de Padilla', then to Enrique IV, under whom he appears to have gone on to enjoy a military career of considerable renown (1977: 231–35). This Torres may have been the same Juan de Torres who, by the Crónica de Juan II (1779: 548) account, along with his wife, explained to Prince Enrique the complaints of those subjects who were despoiled and imprisoned by Pero Sarmiento in Toledo in 1449. Dutton with Krogstad (1991: vii, 457) appear either to reject or not to take account of Salvador Miguel's data, since they tentatively accept the view that the poet was the active and humanistically oriented Jaume de Torres, possibly later canon of Valencia, who served Alfonso V by building up his Neapolitan library (Soria 1956: 98; Ryder 1976: 78; 1990: 320), as did Santa Fe on at least one occasion (Tato 1999 [2000]: 50), and who may well have been the Juan de Torres in Alfonso's Neapolitan expedition. In my view, the association with Álvaro de Luna, and the allusions in 'Non sabes, Juan de Padilla' suggest a link to the Castilian court of Juan II, and reinforce the evidence of the presence of his poetry in Várvaro's lost peninsular collection a. The Ioannes de Turres who highly praised Castile, Juan II and Álvaro de Luna to the Italian humanist Guiniforte Barzizzi (Soria 1956: 54, 198) could equally be our poet or the bibliophile. Nonetheless, it may be significant that Torres may have enjoyed an association with both of the courts whose poetic output was recorded in Palacio.

Tato has made a detailed and extremely persuasive case for the view that Palacio draws on a single-poet, possibly authorial, cancionero manuscript for a portion of its Santa Fe compositions (1999: 132–47). She argues that this is borne out by the facts that:

1. i. his work is distinguished by being the largest volume by any poet in Palacio, which is otherwise characterized by single or small numbers of pieces by any given poet;

2. ii. it is grouped in four clusters of eight, twenty-seven, three and four poems, respectively, rather than being interwoven extensively with the work of other poets;

3. iii. most of his corpus appears in Palacio;

4. iv. the majority of the illuminated capitals appear in conjunction with his compositions;

5. v. the rubrics accompanying his pieces in the first and third clusters are less generic than those accompanying other pieces, which typically merely name the poet, and allude to form or genre;

6. vi. rather, they offer contextualizing information or are in order of composition; and

7. vii. they only accompany his poetry in Palacio;

8. viii. a number of the rubrics, especially in the first cluster, use the first-person singular; and

9. ix. that he is the only poet whose work is introduced by a general rubric, 'Aquí comiençan las obras de Santa Fe' (Tato 1999 [2000]: 132–47).

Tato notes the repetition of one piece in the second and fourth clusters, and the simpler rubrics in the fourth cluster, which she considers may not have formed part of the Santa Fe cancionero, which, consequently, did not compile his complete works (1993: 143), thereby pointing to at least two substrata of Palacio containing Santa Fe compositions. I rehearse her arguments in detail here because I feel that there is a case by analogy that Palacio may also have drawn on a Torres single-author cancionero. However, I acknowledge that the case for a Santa Fe cancionero is much stronger than for a Torres one.

Torres's rubrics fail Tato's rubric test: those used are simple generic ones, such as 'Johan de Torres', 'Otra suya', and 'Coplas esparça. Johan de Torres' (Palacio 1993: 199), in common with those employed elsewhere in the manuscript.⁵ However, our poet shares with Santa Fe the first three points in favour of a single-author cancionero. Torres is the poet with the second largest number of poems in Palacio. In terms of quantity, after Torres, Palacio contains 20 poems by Álvaro de Luna, 15 by Gonzalvo de Torquemada and 14 by Suero de Ribera, for example, so it is fair to say that Torres and Santa Fe are distinguished more than the others by the large number of their poems in the manuscript. Further, like Santa Fe's compositions, Torres's appear in clusters: the first of 14 canciones (fols. 18^v–22^r), and the second of 13 poems (fols. 90^v–93^r). Álvaro de Luna is the only other poet whose work appears in a significant grouping (fols. 88^r–90^v), and the second Torres cluster is linked with it. Torres's reply to the Constable's esparsa is included in the Luna cluster as the ninth of 12 compositions, and the second batch of Torres poems immediately follows it.

The first grouping of Torres's work contains one song compiled in the Gallardo San Román (c.1454): ID0438, 'Aunque sufro enoxos asaz'. The second repeats one, 'Si vos plaze que mantenga' (ID2473; SA7–214), which occurs earlier in Palacio (as SA7–83), and another, 'Esperar bien reçebir' (ID2263), which, although not directly attributed in Palacio, follows a Torres attribution and bears his name in the Cancioneros de Herberay (c.1463; LB2–145) and de Modena (c.1466; ME1–77). Palacio does include ten other repeated poems, an issue to which I shall return elsewhere, including one attributed to Torquemada, and two attributed to Ribera, one of which is elsewhere in Palacio ascribed to Santillana. No poem attributed to Luna is repeated in Palacio. It is possible that these repetitions, and perhaps also the clustering of compositions by Luna, point to the existence of other Palacio substrata. However, Santa Fe and Torres are unique in Palacio by each being represented by a disproportionately large number of poems, the majority of which are grouped in clusters, and in each having one poem repeated from a cluster in another part of the cancionero.

In the extant cancionero corpus, Santa Fe enjoys wider dissemination than Torres, with 14 of his 48 Palacio pieces compiled in other cancioneros (Tato 1999: 160–61). Of Torres's 34 Palacio pieces, only 2 canciones are included elsewhere: 'Aunque sufro enoxos asaz' (ID0438) appears in Gallardo-San Román (MH1–170), and 'Esperar bien reçebir', as mentioned above, is in Herberay/Modena, the former associated with the Navarrese court. Of the four Torres compositions not in Palacio, 'Absente de tu presencia' (ID2257) also appears in both Herberay (LB2–134) and Modena (ME1–66). The two Torres Herberay/Modena canciones form part of the shared nucleus of the two manuscripts, and so are likely to have received further dissemination. The pregunta, 'Non sabes, Juan de Padilla' (ID0142), as noted, is held in common by the Parisian cancioneros 'E' (PN8–43) and 'H' (PN12–35), and Stúñiga (MN54–41). Stúniga (MN54–93) also, but uniquely as noted above, witnesses 'O temprana sepoltura' (ID0590). And, finally, the canción 'O maldida(sic) fermosura' (ID1736), as also noted above, is cited by Torroella's 'Tant mon voler s'és dat a.mors' (ID3068), and is uniquely witnessed as SA10a–45. Santa Fe's distribution is not dissimilar, with 12 of the Palacio compositions compiled elsewhere, mainly in Herberay/Modena, and only four not attested in Palacio.

Three compositions cite Torres's poems. Each is extant in a single witness, with one found in Palacio and the other two in Gallardo-San Román, which also includes one of Torres's own canciones. The quotations are from: 'Sepas tú, senyora mía' (ID0404), 'Sé que m'á costado cara' (ID0528), and 'Grand'enoxo en yo beuir' (ID2486), and are cited by Juan Pimentel, the Count of Mayorga (1409– 37; Whetnall 2003: 299) in his quoting poem, 'Quieres saber como va' (ID0401; MH1–145), in the anonymous quoting poem, 'Bien seruiendo he perdido' (0525; MH1–265), and in Alfonso de Barrientos's sole composition, the canción, 'Quando pienso en la canción' (ID2567; SA7–181), respectively. The dispersion of single poems and of citations from Torres's poetry through a number of the different manuscript cancionero traditions, representing the mixed interests of the Aragonese and Castilian courts of the first half of the 15th century, those of the mid-century Navarrese and Neapolitan courts, and his presence in Gallardo-San Román, perhaps an exemplar in-progress for a copy shop (Whetnall 1993: 302), all support my hypothesis that Torres was more significant than has thus far been allowed, even if his citation by Barrientos, Pimentel and Torroella suggests that his poetic impact was principally upon his immediate peers.

Torres himself engaged in the practice of quotation in his Palacio decires, 'Non podría honbre pensar' (ID2526), with five quotations, and 'Cuytado quando cuydo' (ID2717), with only one quotation, 'Si la muerte no me parte / amor non quiero partir' (ID2527), for which Dutton with Krogstad offer no attribution (1990: vii, 121). In 'Non podría honbre pensar' Torres cites the opening lines of Gonçalo de Cuadros's 'De vos servir et loar' (ID2515; SA7–124), Francisco Ortiz de Calderón's 'De vos bien servir senyora' (ID2528; SA7–187), Alfonso Álvarez de Villasandino's 'Quien de linda se enamora' (ID1176; PN1–31^bis), and Juan de Padilla's 'Pues que sienpre padesçí' (ID2565; SA7–179). The unidentified Galician 'Cuydados e magi -nança' (ID2509) is also cited by an anonymous Palacio decir de estribillos, 'Un día por mi ventura' (ID2508; SA7–188), and Juan Rodríguez del Padrón's 'Pues que Dios y mi ventura' (ID4292; MN20–7), where it is attributed to Macías; poems by both Macías and Padrón appear in Palacio.

Gonzalo de Cuadros was a member of Infante Enrique of Aragon's household, who wounded Álvaro de Luna in a joust in 1418. He was later among the group of Castilian knight-poets who accompanied Alfonso on his second Neapolitan expedition in 1432, including a number with compositions collected in Palacio, such as Fernando de Guevara (ID2433, ID2439R2438) and Juan de Dueñas (ID0370R2603, 0477, 0488, 2258, 2492, 2493S2492, 2494, 2606, 2641, 2650) (Boase 1978: 95–96). Lope de Estúñiga, whose 'Si mis tristes pensamientos' (ID0020) was copied into the margins on the final folio of Palacio in a different hand (Palacio 1993: 385) and was later cited in Torroella's 'Tant mon voler s'és dat a.mors', also formed part of this group. Four of Cuadros's poetic compositions survive: two respuestas to preguntas of Juan Alfonso de Baena, 'Señor Juan Alfonso el alto constante' and 'Señor Juan Alfonso pessar e manzilla', both uniquely witnessed in the Cancionero de Baena (c.1430; ID1576, ID1578) and two canciones from Palacio, the one cited by Torres and the anonymous 'Más me val claro fablar' (ID2570).

Like Barrientos, Francisco Ortiz's surviving poetic output consists of a single composition that appears in Palacio. Dutton records him as being active in the first half of the 15th century, presumably on the evidence of his inclusion in Palacio. The prolific Villasandino's (c.1345–1425) work was compiled in around a dozen manuscripts, including the presence in Palacio of his 'Sin pavor, muy copdiciosso', 'Gradiosso e muy brïosso', and 'Senyora mía loada' (ID2686, ID2687, ID2688, respectively), to none of which are there other testimonies, and of the suspect, 'En una floresta'scura' (ID1184; SA7–79, also PN1–41), which Palacio attributes to Suero de Ribera but others also in Stúñiga, and manuscripts of Italian/Neapolitan provenance.⁶ Padilla's poetic output (c.1405–68) comprises nine compositions, five uniquely, and one other, in Palacio, but others also in Stúñiga, and manuscripts of Italian/Neapolitan provenance. A member of the Infante Enrique's court, he was appointed Camarero de las Armas in 1440, and in 1458 rose to the office of Adelantado de Castilla. The majority of Torres's courtly citations, therefore, come from other Palacio poets and thereby suggest his participation within the specific poetic community whose work is evidenced in the cancionero, specifically those associated with Castilian poets of the first half of the 15th century.

Torres's corpus encompasses many of the courtlier of the cancionero genres, with eight poems described by the rubric as canciones, and many more conforming to that genre, three decires, two esparsas, a pregunta, a respuesta, a perque, and the only lay, '¡Ay, triste de mí!' (ID2480), thus labelled in the rubrics recorded in Dutton with Krogstad's genre index. On the basis of Ana M. Gómez-Bravo's research into metre (1998), the lay, usually defined as a hexasyllabic sextilla with masculine rhyme, seems a form little practised in the cancionero repertoire. Nonetheless, a second lay appears in Palacio: Álvaro de Luna's 'Porque de llorar' (ID2397). It is worth noting that Luna's final sextilla and Torres's first share the same rhyme sound:

Mas, pues presomí	¡Ay, triste de mí!
que desque nascí	porque padesçí
por ti padecer,	sin lo meresçer,
pues gran mal sofrí,	pues siempre serví
resçiba de ti	leal fast'aquí,
agora plazer.	a mi entender.
Álvaro de Luna (Palacio 1993: 7)	Juan de Torres (Palacio 1993: 70)

Each of the poems deals with the theme of the lover's long and patient suffering on account of his desire for his beloved, with Luna expressing the hope of reciprocation, 'pues gran mal sofrí / resçiba de ti / agora plazer' (7). Given the hypothesis that Torres was a member of Luna's circle, borne out by Luna's later citation of this same lay, the fact that Torres's 'La verdad está muy rasa' is a respuesta to Luna's esparsa, 'Diz que más sabe'n su casa', that they are the only lays in Palacio, and that they are linked by rhyme scheme, it is possible that they are intended to play off one another, contrasting the stand of the lover who hopes for recognition and he who cannot. The aabaab rhyme scheme using -í and -er draws on two extremely common cancionero rhymes: Gómez-Bravo lists 2060 and 3516 examples of them, respectively, in her repertoire. However, of the extremely small sample of each which she lists – 113 (5.5%) and 106 (3.1%), respectively – the only examples of the combination of the two is in the pair of poems under discussion. Needless to say, the sample that I have been able to check is statistically insignificant and no conclusions can be drawn on this basis, but the coincidence is nonetheless suggestive of the possibility that the two enjoyed poetic engagement with one another, and that our Torres was a member of Luna's circle. A more elegant solution to the link between the two poems is that proposed by Jane Whetnall in this volume: 'Porque de llorar' is erroneously attributed to Luna through the transposition of folios two and fifty-seven, and, in fact, represents the displaced second half of Torres's '¡Ay, triste de mí!'. The attribution to Luna at the running head of folio 2^r is in a later hand, and probably did not form part of the early apparatus of the Palacio. Under Whetnall's view, the presence of the later attribution supports my argument that the two men were strongly connected.

Torres's perque, 'Por ver el tiempo acavarse' (ID2464) is one of the three earliest examples of this form, along with Diego Hurtado de Mendoza's 'Pues no quiero andar en corte' (1364–1404; ID2395), whose seven poems are uniquely witnessed by Palacio, and Diego de Valera's 'Por non tener que librar' (1412–c.1487; ID0166; RC1–104) from the Cancionero de Roma. Perques are usually organized around a series of questions structured as couplets whose first line is based on anaphora of ¿por qué?, and whose second line rhymes with the first of the following couplet; however, the rubric aside ('Perqué que fizo Johan de Torres'), Torres's poem uses 'porque'. T. Navarro Tomás (1991: 124–25) echoes Rudolf Baehr's view that Torres's perque 'cambia la interrogativa por la afirmativa (1970: 230); however, Juan Casas Rigall indicates that Torres's poem could be read either way (1995: 142).

The survival of poems by Torres belonging to new or little-practised genres, such as the lay and the perque, suggests that he was willing to experiment with form and genre, and goes some way to support Torroella's alignment of him with poetic authorities on love such as the Castilian, mentioned above, and foreign poets like Alain Chartier, Bernard de Ventadorn, Guillaume de Machaut, and Peire Vidal. The evidence examined here supports the view that Torres was aligned with Luna and the poets of the court of Juan II, despite evidence of his interest for the Aragonese Neapolitan court, and of this interest continuing at least until Gallardo-San Román, and encompassing peninsular courts. I have also suggested that the Palacio compiler or compilers may have drawn on a single-poet cancionero for Torres. My hypothesis, taken with Tato's stronger evidence on Santa Fe, suggests that the compiler(s) of Palacio may have been working from a number of different exemplars, which might have included further single-poet cancioneros or poetry collected in single-author miscellanies or house manuscripts. If my hypothesis were borne out, Palacio would merit further and much more detailed analysis than it has received.