La corónica: A Journal of Medieval Hispanic Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

Domesticating Boccaccio and Sannazaro for Castile

The original texts Ayala and Salazar chose to translate were composed nearly 200 years apart, belonged to different genres, and were disseminated in different ways; however, they shared a common language, connections to the Neapolitan court, a place in the Italian literary canon, and love themes. Boccaccio’s works spread through much of Western Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, beginning with his Latin texts, then followed by translations of his vernacular works. Despite being fourteenth-century texts, the vernacular texts bear close relation to late fifteenth to early seventeenth-century trends in European prose fiction (Armstrong 128-29). For the Spanish literary context, the thematic content of the Filocolo, composed between 1336 and 1339, intersects with that of sentimental fiction. Boccaccio’s text presents a recasting of the popular medieval European romance of Floire and Blanchefloire through a [End Page 120] combination of medieval and classical elements in a Christianizing framework.⁴

Translations of the Filocolo frequently extracted only one section of Book Four, an episode of love casuistry known as the Questioni d’amore.⁵ In the episode, the protagonist, Filocolo, arrives in Naples and attends a gathering hosted by Lady Fiammetta.⁶ To escape the heat of the afternoon, the band of noble ladies and gentlemen takes refuge in the shade of a nearby garden to debate the love dilemmas in stories told by members of the group. Although Ayala’s dedication of the translated text indicates that he had read the work in its entirety, he conformed to the trend elsewhere in Europe of translating only this excerpt.

Unlike the Filocolo, Sannazaro’s Arcadia, first published in 1504, is an example of the pastoral genre, also in vogue at European courts of the late fifteenth to early seventeenth centuries. Much as Boccaccio had experimented with themes and genres in his vernacular prose fiction, Sannazaro, a Neapolitan noble, would recast the Virgilian pastoral tradition through a conglomeration of pre-existing pastorals set in a prose narrative frame. The result inaugurated the genre of the pastoral novel. The Arcadia quickly garnered praise both in Italian courts and abroad, converting it into a model for the experimentation of other pastoral novels, including Jorge de Montemayor’s Diana (1559).⁷ The work would also influence Garcilaso de la Vega’s cultivation of Italianate poetic forms (Parrilla 302).

As Spanish translations, the source texts enter new contexts with distinct readerships, an autochthonous literary canon, and substantially different social, economic, and political realities. Making sense of the new texts requires moving beyond questions of the original author’s intentions, instead emphasizing the translator’s adaptation of the original work to its new context and the uses of the new text. To produce an intelligible translation, [End Page 121] translators rely on a process Lawrence Venuti has termed domestication, in which a text positions itself within the discourses of the translating language’s literary system (5; 14). The translated text then becomes an agent in shaping the new context’s literary canon, whether in maintaining or revising it (14; 68). Venuti also asserts the significance of translations in the identity formation of specific groups: “As translation constructs a domestic representation for a foreign text and culture, it simultaneously constructs a domestic subject, a position of intelligibility that is also an ideological position, informed by the codes and canons, interests and agendas of certain domestic social groups” (68).

For Ayala and Salazar, both patronage and the reading practices of an intellectual elite played an important role in the production of their translations. The translations, as a product of the social and cultural concerns of a particular group, work with other texts in the group’s repertoire to represent an identity that defines itself in relation, frequently oppositional, to other groups. The ideological positions that result from the domestication of a foreign text serve a dialectical function in struggles of cultural dominance and hierarchies of values (Venuti 14; 68). An analysis of Ayala and Salazar’s modifications to the original Italian works illustrates some of the tastes and attitudes that shaped the development of their readership’s literary repertoire. Further historicizing the texts suggests the contours of an elite readership, confirms the importance of patronage in the cultural production of the community, and points to attempts at self-representation by members of this community and, eventually, cultural agents of the Spanish empire.

Diego López de Ayala’s associations with Toledo Cathedral began in his position as racionero in 1493, followed by his service as a page for the Archbishop Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros beginning in 1496 (Actas 2: fol. 49^r and Torre 204). He later became the Regent Cisneros’s envoy to the Flemish court of the future Carlos V.⁸ Upon returning to Toledo, Ayala became a canon, also serving as obrero mayor from 1518-1557. During his tenure, Ayala was responsible for artistic commissions that ranged from [End Page 122] architectural embellishments to the cathedral interior, paintings, and sculptures to choir music and the Custodia de Arfe.⁹ He quickly garnered a reputation for sophistication and innovation that won him prestige in courtly circles and created a demand for his discerning taste that extended well beyond the cathedral.¹⁰ Aside from the two translations, Ayala’s only other known work is his additions to his ancestor Pedro López de Ayala’s Libro de linages (Floranes 510-11). In all of his commissions at Toledo Cathedral, Ayala incorporated prominently his coat of arms displaying two wolves passant, which also shows proudly on the frontispiece of the Toledo editions of the translations.

We know much less about the poet-soldier Diego de Salazar. From the prologue to the Treze questiones written by the editor of the Toledan editions, Blasco de Garay, we know that, in addition to his aspirations as a poet, Salazar served as a military captain but spent his later years as a hermit (fol. 2^r). Reyes Cano notes that Salazar served under the command of Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba in Italy and later led a Toledan contingent in the 1509 conquest of Oran organized by Cisneros (80-81). In addition to his collaborations with Ayala, Salazar also produced two Spanish prose translations of Italian works on military topics. He based his version of the Guerras civiles de los romanos (1536) by Appian of Alexandria on Alessandro Braccio’s Italian translation of the original Latin (Pellicer 92-93), and he translated Machiavelli’s Dell’arte della guerra as the Tratado de Re Militari (1536) without identifying the source text (Menéndez y Pelayo cccii). Significantly, the latter work makes use of the same narrative frame that structures the Treze questiones: a group of notables escapes the heat of the day by retreating to a wooded garden where they sustain a dialogue on military questions.

While it is not the purpose of the present study to provide an exhaustive [End Page 123] collation of Ayala and Salazar’s collaborative translations with the source texts, a somewhat less comprehensive comparison yields significant observations that have direct relevance for my argument.¹¹ From the prologues and afterwords added by Garay, we know that in the case of both works, Ayala translated the prose and Salazar, the verse. Interestingly, Ayala appears to take a different approach to translating prose than Salazar does for verse. Generally, Ayala’s translation of the prose of both works follows the original texts closely, not merely in meaning, but frequently also in phrasing. There are, however, some differences. For example, at the outset of Filocolo’s narration of the first question, Ayala substitutes cavalieri with galanes or “gratiosi nel loro aspecto” with “de buena dispusición” (Boccaccio fols. 10^r-10^v and Ayala fols. 3^v-4^r). He also substitutes the direct speech of the mother with reported speech: “Le disse: ‘Bella figluola, ciaschuno de’ questi duoi te ama et in questione sono quale datte piu sia amato et cerchano di grazia che tu o con segni o con parole li faci certi’” (fol. 10^v) versus “mandole, pues que los dos la amavan, que los certificasse por palabra o por señas de lo que desseauan saber” (fol. 4^r). This example also demonstrates how Ayala sometimes simplifies or paraphrases the original text. Finally, Ayala occasionally adds short clarifying phrases, for example, adding the phrase “ni a qual ella tenía por más servidor” to clarify at the beginning of the first question that not only did the galanes argue over which of them love the lady more, but also that it was unclear whom she favored most (fol. 4^r).

All of these divergences from the source text owe to efforts to domesticate the text for a specific constituency of users of the translating language. At least some of the domestication work may be a product of editorial and printing interventions.¹² Case studies such as Albert Lloret’s book [End Page 124] on Spanish translations of Ausiàs March’s Catalan poetry, illustrate how the domesticating work of sixteenth-century translations can result, for example, in ideological modifications, for example, Romaní’s tendency to censor or tone down verses that might offend Catholic sensibilities.¹³ Given the widespread nature of such approaches to editing and translating in early modern Europe, one might expect a canon at Toledo Cathedral to make similar adjustments to morally questionable aspects of the Treze questiones. In reality, however, Ayala does not significantly modify, for example, the erotic content of the stories, and the source text does not require him to contend with explicitly religious subject matters. As a final example from the Arcadia demonstrates, Ayala’s translation of Sannazaro’s work aims for an even closer adherence to the original phrasing, often a word-for-word gloss of the source text. The Italian text begins as follows: “Giace nela sommità di Parthenio non humile monte de la pastorale Arcadia un dilettevole piano” (fol. 3^r); the Spanish text begins, “Está en la cumbre de Parthenio no pequeño monte de la pastoral Arcadia, un deleytoso llano” (fol. 4^v). The similarities in these brief phrases are indicative of Ayala’s translation of the work as a whole.

The examples from the Treze questiones demonstrate four modifications common to Ayala’s translation: 1) he maps the vocabulary of the Italian courtly context of the original onto a Castilian one; 2) while he maintains the direct dialogues between the nobles telling the stories, he frequently substitutes instances of direct speech within the stories with reported speech; 3) he often abridges the phrasing of the original; and 4) he occasionally adds short, clarifying phrases. The substitution of reported for direct speech occasionally results in a somewhat less dynamic text than the original, but Ayala does not take this approach consistently, nor does he alter the substance of the interactions, instead leaving many instances of dialogue intact. Ayala’s tendency to abridge the original suggests a preference for less embellished prose. Finally, the addition of short phrases to clarify meaning is interpretive, but generally echoes ideas stated explicitly in other sections of the text. Additionally, Ayala substitutes Castilian names for some of the [End Page 125] characters in the work: for example, Alcide is referred to by his Castilian name, Ercules; the unnamed bella donna of the sixth question becomes Ysabel; and Pola of the eighth question is now doña Mencía.

Considered holistically, Ayala’s adaptations are relatively limited and essentially stylistic in nature, indicating a taste for more succinct prose that provides clarity for the reader. In his article on translation in early modern Spain, Juan Luis Monreal Pérez demonstrates that sixteenth-century Spanish intellectuals understood translation as an interpretive act, not one that called for a “servilismo literal”; rather, the examples he analyzes emphasize the contributions translation work makes to the development of vernacular registers (84). Although the treatises Monreal Pérez examines recognize the need for the translator to apply interpretive and linguistic skill, Juan de Valdés and Fray Luis de León, in particular, advocate for translations that are as faithful as possible to the original. Ayala’s work, as with any translation, is indeed interpretive, but he appears to espouse a restrained approach in line with the recommendations of theorists like Valdés and Fray Luis.

Salazar’s poetry follows an approach quite different from Ayala’s prose translations. In the case of Sannazaro’s Arcadia, a work that would influence Garcilaso de la Vega’s break with Castilian poetic traditions, Salazar eschews the Italianate preference for hendecasyllables and instead opts for the more traditionally Castilian octosyllable. Considering the attention literary histories have given to the cultivation of Italianate verse in Castilian in the sixteenth century, we might find it surprising that the translator of an Italian original would instead rewrite the poetry using Castilian meter. However, José Manuel Blecua reminds us that, despite historiographic emphasis on the force of Juan Boscán and Garcilaso’s Italianate metric innovations, more traditionally Castilian metric forms continued to coexist alongside new ones throughout the sixteenth century and into the seventeenth, including among cultural elites (“Corrientes poéticas”). In fact, Jorge de Montemayor’s Diana would follow Sannazaro’s model of combining verse forms in a prose narrative frame, but, perhaps inspired by the Toledan translation, he, too, would often opt for arte menor. Sixteenth-century theorists like Vives affirmed that the constraints of verse forms created a need for greater [End Page 126] freedom in the translation of poetry (Monreal Pérez 94). As one might anticipate, Salazar maintains the semantic elements of the original in his translation, but paraphrases and modifies word choice and order according to metric and linguistic needs. Garay’s description of Salazar’s verse in the prologue to the Arcadia translation explicitly makes allowance for poetic licences in the Castilian version in the interest of “furor poético” (fol. 3^r).

In the Treze questiones, on the other hand, the song in hendecasyllables of the seventh question is translated, most likely by Ayala, without metric regularity as part of the prose. However, the single most striking divergence from the original is the unique addition of verse summaries of each of the questiones and their respuestas.¹⁴ The inclusion of these summaries does not appear in other versions of the text, either in Italian or in translation. This significant alteration of the source text, considered in tandem with the innovative nature of the Sannazaro’s prose-verse combination in the Arcadia, indicate a demand for such heterogeneous combinations in their new context. As a function of the framework described by Even-Zohar, the translations operated on the periphery of the Castilian literary polysystem, introducing innovatory, rather than conservatory, contributions to the repertoire.

Prestige, Patronage, and the Intellectual Elite in Sixteenth-Century Toledo

The interests of the translators and editors, however, were not purely literary. An analysis of the paratexts and the historical context in which the translations first circulated as manuscripts and later in print demonstrates–to borrow from the opening quote by Venuti–the variety of uses, interests, and values served by these works. The production and fate of the translations correlate initially to notions of prestige, mechanisms of patronage, and the multi-modal reading practices of a Toledan intellectual elite and, later, to representations of the linguistic and cultural legitimacy of the Spanish [End Page 127] Empire. In the first phase, the translations function as cultural capital in the strategic interactions of a powerful group of nobles, clerics, and intellectuals. The printed editions of the second phase have higher aspirations. They are presented as authoritative editions with particular creative and linguistic merit in translation and function as cultural capital in the more far-reaching context of the European interests of the Spanish empire.

Pierre Bourdieu developed his notion of cultural capital in the context of education to explain the critical influence of non-economic forces in the reproduction of power relations. Others have since applied his theory to a wide variety of contexts, including literary and cultural studies. John Guillory, still writing on the subject of education, has applied the notion of cultural capital to the development and uses of the literary canon. Lucia Binotti has appropriated the concept in her analysis of questions of language and national identity in Imperial Spain. The strength of Bourdieu’s theory lies in its ability to describe the often intangible and difficult-to-quantify elements that play significant roles in structuring and maintaining social hierarchies. Critics such as John Goldthorpe have also identified weaknesses in Bourdieu’s theory, particularly its minimization of the role of individual agency in favor of a strongly deterministic order. With a greater allowance for agency, two components of Bourdieu’s theory prove particularly fruitful for describing the dynamics at play in the sociohistorical context surrounding Ayala and Salazar’s translations: cultural capital (in both its embodied and objectified states) and social capital. In its embodied state, cultural capital takes the form of dispositions, for example, attitudes or reflexive reactions to new situations; in its objectified state, cultural capital takes the form of goods, such as books or, in this case, translations (243-48). Social capital, on the other hand, corresponds to one’s membership in a group or access to a network (248-52). In Ayala and Salazar’s world, the ability to cultivate the dispositions of a cultural elite and to produce cultural artifacts equated to access to cultural capital, which, in turn, constituted one of the determining factors in the accrual of social capital.

We have already noted Diego López de Ayala’s interest in personal and family prestige in the prominent displays of his coat of arms in the cathedral [End Page 128] and on the Toledo editions of the translations, as well as his additions to the noble genealogy, the Libro de linages, that included his family name. His reputation for sophisticated taste likely factored in to his relationship with the emperor’s secretary, Francisco de los Cobos. Pedro López de Santa Catalina’s high praise for Ayala’s written works and his commissions at the cathedral in the dedication of his Libro segundo de Espejo de cavallerías (1527), whose frontispiece also displays Ayala’s coat of arms, testifies to the importance given to personal prestige (3). Salazar’s case is less clear, but there are indications in his substitution of the Tratado de Re Militari’s original Fabrizio Colonna with his own former Castilian commander, the Gran Capitán Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba. Similarly, Garay, in his prologue to the Treze questiones, boasts that Salazar, well known for his facility with meter, “no solo me tenía por amigo, mas aún muchas vezes hablando entre otros de mí, me llamava su compañero” (fol. 2^r). Garay’s blatant attempt to capitalize on his relationship illustrates the importance of prestige as it relates to social capital.

The prestige (or symbolic capital in Bourdieu’s terminology) that Ayala and Salazar garnered would certainly have held significance for them as sources of glory and fame, but it must also be understood in terms of its capacity to bolster the more transactional concerns of cultural and social capital. An important aspect in the accrual of social capital in early modern Europe is what Roger Chartier identifies the “economy of patronage, which obligated the dedicatee to accord protection, employment, or remuneration in exchange for the book dedicated, offered, and accepted” (41-42). All of the printed editions of the Treze questiones reproduce a dedication, presumably Ayala’s, to an anonymous “vuestra merced, a la qual suplico las mande rescebir como embiadas de persona que si más tuviera, con más os sirviera” (fol. 3^r). Similarly, Garay dedicates his edition of the Arcadia translation to Gonzalo Pérez, secretary to the royal prince Felipe (fol. 2^r). Furthermore, Garay’s efforts to produce printed editions of the translations should also be understood as a means of currying favor with Ayala. Significantly, the Actas Capitulares of Toledo Cathedral record a controversy surrounding Garay’s confirmation as a racionero in 1547 due to a deformity; among the canons, [End Page 129] it is Ayala who comes to his defense (7: fol. 238^r-v).

While it is clear that the network of patronage extended beyond the city of Toledo to include members of the royal court, my analysis also reveals the contours of an active and influential Toledan intellectual community. A detailed description of this community is beyond the scope of the present article; however, a brief examination of some of its characteristics has some surprising implications directly relevant to the translations and the reading practices they supported. Before proceeding, it is helpful to recognize the somewhat fluid and vaguely defined nature of networks. In Art of the Network, Paul McLean uses letters seeking patronage in Renaissance Florence to demonstrate the dynamic nature of networks based on strategic interaction as a function of the ever increasing and decreasing social capital of its members. Given the significance of patronage in early modern Spain, the same principles apply to the Toledan context. While factors such as nobility and wealth were certainly key components of power relations, I argue that cultural and social capital as described here invested intellectuals with the agency to become participants and strengthen their standing in a network of the cultural elite.

Four spheres of activity or epicenters seem to play significant roles in connecting members of Toledo’s intellectual elite, including Ayala, Garay, and Salazar: 1) associations with the Archbishop Cisneros and/or the Universidad de Alcalá that he founded in 1499 (this includes close associates of Ayala–some identified as conversos and proponents of Erasmus–such as Juan de Vergara and Álvar Gómez de Castro¹⁵); 2) Toledan noble families such as the Ayalas, Lasos de la Vega, and Álvarez de Toledo; 3) prebendados and other beneficiaries of Toledo Cathedral; and 4) individuals associated with the founding in Toledo of the Colegio de Santa Catalina (including Ayala, who wrote the Constitutiones, Pedro Vázquez, Bernardino Zapata, and Bernardino de Alcaraz¹⁶). Many individuals in this community were active in more than one sphere, suggesting quite logically that social capital played an important role in concentrating and maintaining power across noble, intellectual, and religious circles. [End Page 130]

Literary Culture, Contemplative Leisure, and Toledo’s Casas de recreo

The production of cultural capital also fueled the interactions that helped define Toledo’s intellectual network. Many of the intellectuals published works at the press of Juan de Ayala, who set up shop next to Toledo Cathedral.¹⁷ Juan de Ayala printed two editions each of the Arcadia and Treze questiones translations (1546/1549 and 1547/1549, respectively), in addition to two Latin works by the Toledo canon Blas Ortiz–one with a prologue by the same Blasco de Garay–and Garay’s edition of Cristóbal de Castillejo’s Diálogo de las condiciones de las mujeres (1546). Juan de Ayala also printed Sebastián de Horozco’s Cancionero and maintained connections with Horozco and Sebastián de Covarrubias.¹⁸

Beyond printed works, several of the members of the intellectual community associated with Ayala, Garay, and Salazar also frequently participated in literary debates and poetry tournaments, exchanges with the potential to display embodied, as well as objectified, cultural capital. For example, in his Relación de algunas cosas que pasaron en estos reinos Pedro de Alcócer describes the “grandes revatos o devates” that took place between the Conde de Cifuentes Juan de Silva, Juan de Rivera and Pedro López de Padilla on the one hand, and the Marqués de Villena and Conde de Fuensalida on the other (20). Well-known Toledan intellectuals, such as Álvar Gómez de Castro and Pedro Vázquez, also participated in friendly poetic exchanges and poetry tournaments like the one organized to honor Archbishop Silíceo’s first visit to Alcalá de Henares in 1546 (Weiner 540-47). Other exchanges were less amicable, such as the burlesque letter addressed to Captain Salazar by Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, who refers to himself as a “bachiller de Arcadia” and offers criticism of a book by Salazar (Castro 547-50). Garay’s prologue to the Treze questiones, on the other hand, praises Salazar’s notable facility with both composed and improvised poetry, indicating that the captain also participated in the kinds of poetry tournaments to which Weiner refers. Juan de Vergara, who maintained a long friendship with Ayala, also composed [End Page 131] coplas for him (Weiner 544). These socialized literary exchanges continued throughout the course of the century.

Directly concerning Ayala and Salazar, Constantino Rodríguez provides a note in a posthumous article on the Toledo of Garcilaso de la Vega that describes a special gathering hosted by Ayala in 1534 (144-45). According to the description, the gathering took place in September 1534, and both Salazar and Garay attended. Garcilaso, in advance of a military mission to Italy, regaled guests of the literary gathering by reciting some of his own poetry, including sonnets and an eclogue, and singing while playing the vihuela. The gathering situates all three of the individuals connected to the translations in a social setting dedicated to the enjoyment and performance of literature in community. In a similar vein, Garay’s prologue to the Treze questiones emphasizes Ayala’s custom of hosting intellectuals “sabrosamente” in his library (fol. 2^r). Even more telling, however, is Garay’s comment in the prologue to the Arcadia in which he explains Ayala’s hesitation with regard to a printed edition by stating “más la tenía para conmunicación y passatiempo de amigos, que para soltarla por el incierto y desvariado juicio del vulgo” (fol. 2^v). The comment clearly relates the importance of literary texts as a feature in the social interactions of Ayala’s community. It is also clear that Ayala and Salazar were active participants in Toledan literary culture beyond their translations.

The phrase “para conmunicación y passatiempo de amigos” merits special attention. Garay’s use of the word “passatiempo” echoes Ayala’s use of it in his dedication of the Treze questiones: “Leyendo por mi passatiempo el verano passado un libro en lengua toscana que se llama Filocalo…entre muchas materias sutiles de amore que la historia trata, hallé treze questiones…y paresciéndome bien, acordé de traduzirlas en nuestro romance castellano” (fol. 3^r). Ayala’s dedication indicates that he read the source text individually and for the purpose of leisure. The sophisticated nature of the treatment of love themes in the works, coupled with their entertainment value, must have played an important part in their appeal. Despite the apparent levity of the sentimental themes of both works, their incorporation of examples rooted in the Classical world and genres closely associated with courtly sophistication [End Page 132] reflect an interest in what Battaglia termed “un’oziosità contemplativa” when describing the Decameron (139). In “The problem of the ‘best-seller’ in Spanish Golden-Age literature”, Keith Whinnom appropriately reminds us that an examination of print records and libraries indicates that the production of literary texts in early modern Spain paled in comparison to that of devotional literature. More recently, Miguel-Prendes has argued that readers of Diego de San Pedro’s Cárcel de amor and other sentimental fictions at the Isabelline court approached such texts with a prayer-book mentality. Given that the sixteenth-century Toledan intellectual community had strong connections to the cathedral and that Juan de Ayala’s print inventory at his death in 1556 further evinces an overwhelming emphasis on devotional literature, one might expect the prayer-book mentality to inform Toledo’s post-Isabelline elite readership, as well. Yet, it fails to explain fully and accurately the reading preferences and practices of this community. Had Ayala wished to provide his readers with a more devotionally appropriate work, he might have translated the remainder of the Filocolo, whose title character’s tribulations in the quest to find his lost love, Blanchefloire, correlate more closely to the martyr element of sentimental romance.¹⁹ On the contrary, a significant portion of Ayala’s literary endeavors–and those of his community of readers–focus on texts that bear no obvious relation to religious devotion.

In addition to the importance of leisure, Garay’s prologue indicates that one of Ayala’s stated uses of the Arcadia translation was comunicación de amigos. The silent reading that resulted in Ayala’s translation of the Treze questiones must be understood as complementary to other, more interactive–and strategic–reading practices.²⁰ I have already noted the importance of literary debates and poetry tournaments in the interactions of the Toledan intellectual community. Ayala and Salazar’s translations provide their readers with models of literary interactions in settings with increasingly [End Page 133] close associations with Toledo’s surrounding countryside. Garcilaso often used the Toledan countryside as the setting for his pastoral eclogues, and Gómez de Castro relocated mythological figures here, for example in his poem Las Náyades.²¹ Similarly, the wooded gardens that provided the settings of the dialogues in works like the Treze questiones, Tratado de Re Militari, and Decameron, became a feature of the casas de recreo, recreational estates on the opposite bank of the Tagus River surrounding Toledo. Many of these estates belonged to members of Toledo’s intellectual elite, including Juan de Vergara and Diego López de Ayala. In Los cigarrales de Toledo (1857), Antonio Martín Gamero describes Vergara’s use of the property as a space dedicated to the cultivation of the Muses (106). Descriptions of Ayala’s casa de recreo, later known as the Cigarral del Bosque identify the wooded space as its distinguishing feature. In his will (1556), Ayala highlights the natural elements as an integral part of the property: “la casa del campo que yo tengo en término d’esta cibdad de Toledo al pago de la Bastida con el bosque, cercados y árboles y tierra, y con todo lo labrado, comprado y edificado en ella y a ello anexo y pertenesciente” (O’Conner 162). In his Memorial de algunas cosas notables que tiene la Imperial Ciudad de Toledo (1576), Luis Hurtado de Mendoza also draws attention to the woods when describing the property of the then deceased canon: “la casa y Bosque que labró Diego Lopez de Ayala, obrero y canónigo de la Santa Iglesia de Toledo” (506). The wooded garden that distinguished Ayala’s property would have provided an ideal venue for the literary gatherings and debates described above.

The literary aptness of Ayala’s wooded garden is confirmed in a short fictional work by another member of Toledo’s intellectual community, the jurist and literary aficionado Pedro Vázquez: “Síguese otro diálogo entre Diego López de Ayala, canónigo y obrero de la Santa Yglesia de Toledo, y su eco, estando en su heredad y bosque”. In the dialogue, Ayala walks through the woods on his estate wondering what good deeds he will be remembered for after his death. He explains to his echo that he is concerned about a pending legal case at the cathedral with García Manrique, who plans to deny the canon a burial site guaranteed to him many years earlier. According to [End Page 134] Ayala’s comments in the dialogue, the case may take some time to resolve. The echo, which offers advice merely through the clever repetition of the final syllables of Ayala’s previous statement or question, encourages Ayala to demonstrate more diligence in moving the case forward by speaking with the archbishop and to dedicate more time to worrying about the affairs of the next life. Even in this depiction of a private, individual reflection, the inclusion of an echo makes dialogue the driving narrative force.

Situated in this broader context, Ayala and Salazar’s translations cannot be understood merely as peripheral agents contributing to the revision of a domestic literary canon; rather, the selection of source texts, the domesticating work of the translators, and the reading practices of Toledo’s intellectual elite clearly testify to the use of the translations as cultural capital in a network of patronage that valued representations of contemplative leisure. It is not Filocolo’s lovesick journey that appeals to Ayala and his readers, rather their interest lies in the courtly behavior and dispositions modeled in the Treze questiones and the excerpt’s ability to do what Venuti has described: “position readers in domestic intelligibilities that are also ideological positions, ensembles of values, beliefs, and representations that further the interests of certain social groups over others” (78). Translated and in dialogue with the discourses and expectations of a foreign literary repertoire, the Treze questiones and the Arcadia mirror the attitudes, behavior, and ideals that distinguish Toledo’s powerful elite in opposition to other social groups. The performability of both texts makes them well suited to the interactive, communal literary culture of the elite. The texts provide readers with an affirmation of their distinctive practice of contemplative leisure while simultaneously modeling and informing that practice.

Marketing the Cultural Capital of an Empire

Yet, the uses of the texts as cultural capital were not limited to the Toledan community. After the translations circulated for some time in manuscript form, Blasco de Garay edited them for printing, fully aware that he was addressing a broader readership. His strategic dedication of the Arcadia is to Gonzalo Pérez, a member of the royal court active in wider and [End Page 135] more influential circles, and in Garay’s messages to readers framing both translations, he places them in the context of the broader Spanish vernacular canon. He calls attention not only to the canonical status of the original works, but also to the eloquence and quality of the new versions. For example, when Garay refers to Boccaccio in the prologue to the Treze questiones, he uses the phrase “famoso poeta y orador” in recognition of the author’s well-established reputation (fol. 2^r). Garay’s praise of the more contemporary Sannazaro reaches even further:

cavallero napolitano, aunque de origen español: tan claro por sus letras que a quererle yo agora de nuevo loar, seria obscurecer sus alabanzas con las faltas de mi rudo ingenio. Porque, a lo que affirman los más sabios, o igualó a Virgilio en el verso latino, o se acercó tanto a él que a ninguno quiso dexar en medio. Y en el verso vulgar (siguiendo materia pastoril) unos dizen que sobrepujo, otros que igualó al mejor de los poetas Toscanos.

(fol. 2^v)

In both cases, Garay highlights the canonical status of the original authors, whose universally recognized skill and connections to Classical tradition make them deserving of such renown.

Garay also notes the erudition of the dedicatee of his edition of the Arcadia translation: “en la primera lengua que se escribió, la tenía vuestra erudición y pretencia tan conocida y familiar, que si era menester, de coro (como dizen) relatavades todos los más notables lugares y puntos de ella” (fol. 2^v). Like Garay’s dedicatee, much of the courtly audience who might read the works could do so in the original Italian. Therefore, the translations cannot be explained simply as a tool for a courtly reading public to gain access to the texts. Instead, the Spanish rendering of the texts seeks to demonstrate that Castilian language can achieve eloquence equal to that of the already canonized original Italian works. Well-crafted Spanish renderings of canonical Italian works might also serve to assert the cultural legitimacy of Castilian, the language of a massive and growing empire with critical political and economic interests in the Italian Peninsula and, perhaps, an inferiority complex about the cultural legitimacy offered by Italy’s strong geographical connections to the Classical past or the much more recent, but already classic, literary triumvirate of Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch. [End Page 136] Nebrija had already underscored the importance of language for empire: “siempre la lengua fue compañera del imperio” (11).²²

Garay’s descriptions of the quality of the translated versions is pointedly dramatic. In the prologue to the Treze questiones, the editor describes his own reaction when he first came into contact with the translation in Ayala’s personal library:

encomençáronseme a encender las orejas de calor con la dulçura de su estilo… no cessé de querer saber adelante quién avia compuesto tan elegante y polida castellana prosa… Del qual (porque no caresciesse nuestra lengua materna de semejantes riquezas) no con poca instancia trabajé, que consintiesse sacarle a luz pues tan digno era de ella.

(fol. 2^v)

In this instance, Garay’s dramatic physical response to the work’s style is a product of the Castilian prose, not the original Italian, and he identifies as an explicit motive of his edition that the Spanish language not be deprived of such riches. Similarly, in his prologue and afterword to the Arcadia, Garay dedicates exceptional attention to the significance of the craft of translation and the quality of the language that resulted, in particular, from Ayala’s efforts. He states that the translation he is introducing is the work of not one, but three, distinguished men. He deems worthy of recognition the efforts of word choice and the crafting of an appropriate style in the new language. Garay praises the “estilo y primor” of Ayala’s prose, the proper Toledan language of a “cortés caballero”, and the elegant style of Salazar’s verse (“Al muy magnífico” fol. 3^r). In other words, Garay emphasizes the artistic dimension of the act of translation and considers the creative work of the translators, as well as the expressive potential of the Castilian language, essential to the success of the translated text. Garay’s editions claim to present a sophisticated variety of Castilian worthy of emulation and at least comparable in quality to the original canonical text.

Assertions about the canonical status of the original works and the quality of the translations allow Garay to engage in a new process of canonization. He [End Page 137] presents his editions of each text as authorized and corrected, thus positing them as canonical versions in the same way that Bembo and Herrera actively participated in the canonization of works by Boccaccio and Garcilaso de la Vega, respectively. Garay’s prologue to the Treze questiones recognizes the existence of a previous edition of Ayala and Salazar’s translation printed in Seville, but he vehemently discredits both its authority and quality:

ya a hurtadas se le avía otro antes divulgado, y como a la sazón no le hallasse título, púsole el que a él mejor le paresció, llamándole Laberyntho de amor de Juan Bocacio, como el Laberynto sea libro distinto del Philocalo, aunque todos de un mismo autor. Assi mismo sacole muy vicioso, como cosa de rebato hurtada.

(fol. 2^v)

By describing the Seville edition in this way, Garay is able to present his own edition as “correctíssimo y con la última lima de su autor refinado” (fol. 2^v). His description of how he came across the text in the personal library and company of one of its translators is not casual. Likewise, his claim to a close friendship with the then deceased Salazar suggests that he is well positioned to produce a canon-worthy edition of the translation. In the case of the Arcadia edition, Garay’s afterword alerts readers who may have previously read or now possess a manuscript copy of the translation, that they will notice many changes in the verse, since as editor he worked to correct Salazar’s hasty work that was never intended for publication in the first place. Although Garay presents his modifications with a modicum of requisite modesty, he highlights the exceptional quality of his revision of the translation (fol. 66^r). As editor, Garay underscores his role in producing stabilized and authorized versions of the translations.

The use of Ayala and Salazar’s translations as cultural capital in the broader context of empire is amplified with the return of the Treze questiones to the Italian Peninsula to become part of a publishing project in Venice. The edition was part of a larger editorial project by the printer Gabriele Giolito and the editor Alfonso de Ulloa that sought to portray the authority of the cultural production of the Spanish empire with the support of the Spanish ambassador, Francisco de Vargas.²³ Ulloa had already produced editions of [End Page 138] originally Spanish-language texts for printing at Venetian presses; however, the reprinting of a Spanish translation of an Italian work by an author with canonical status suggests a more complex dynamic. The typographic elegance of Ulloa’s edition, its likeness to sophisticated Italian editions, and its association with an Italian readership all point to the use of this Spanish translation as a form of cultural capital that was a key factor in attempts to shape a prestigious image of the language and culture of the Spanish Empire. The fact that Ulloa used Garay’s preface, albeit without including Garay’s name, suggests that Ulloa also recognized the translation’s potential to portray Spain’s linguistic and cultural legitimacy.

Some Conclusions

Ayala and Salazar’s translations deserve wider recognition in Spanish literary histories, not because of any intrinsic literary quality, but because, when considered in light of their sociohistorical context, they have so much to tell us about the concerns of a broadly influential segment of sixteenth-century Castilian society. The translators’ domestication of the works underscores the cultural practices of an intellectual elite designed to configure and maintain the social order. The texts become cultural capital for the individual in a network of patronage and for the community of readers as a means of representing an ideal. The interactions of this community are multivalent: they provide entertainment and solidify social bonds, but they are also strategic, having the capacity to increase social capital by strengthening existing bonds and to create new ones. The cultural capital is effective on many levels: through individual agency in the form of the creation of cultural artifacts that display one’s facility with the codes of the community; through appeals to the prestige of other members of the community that might improve one’s own standing through favor and association; and through regular, communal interactions that bridge the literary world and the real, providing opportunities to demonstrate and enhance the dispositions of a powerful elite. These practices help define and maintain the disctinctive nature of a select group to the exclusion of less powerful groups. [End Page 139]

The practices of Ayala and Salazar’s community would continue to define the literary culture of Toledo into the seventeenth century. It is clear that, in part through the casas de recreo culture, Ayala, if not Salazar, contributed as an active and enthusiastic participant in the rise of early modern Toledo’s literary academies. Over the course of the sixteenth century, these academies would take on increasingly institutionalized identities. During El Greco’s lifetime, the Conde de Fuensalida, a family relation of Ayala’s, would host one such academy (Blecua, “La academia poética” 459-62). The common use of Toledo’s casas de recreo as the natural setting for members of these academies to engage in intellectual debates would continue, providing the subject of Tirso de Molina’s Cigarrales de Toledo (1624) in which the author often describes the woods and natural setting. The intersection of the literary and the real worlds in a Toledan context developed, in part, thanks to the fruitful efforts of predecessors like Ayala and Salazar.

Beyond Toledo, the dedication of the translations to powerful patrons and Garay and Ulloa’s editorial packaging of the translations for broader audiences make it clear that early modern authors, readers, and editors understood books as cultural capital: literature, whatever entertainment value it legitimately held, also constituted a compelling tool capable of conveying representations of social, political, and cultural legitimacy. In continuous dialogue with other representations, foreign and domestic, the literary repertoire evolved not simply as art for art’s sake, but as a function of the ideals, motives, and discursive practices of distinct groups within the social hierarchy. [End Page 140]