Enrique del Castillo, Diego

Cronica del rey Don Enrique IV.  Manuscript text, in Castillian, Spanish [221] leaves (11 3/4 x 8 1/8 in.), all but the title-page and final leaf written on both sides, in various shades of brown ink in several Spanish bookhands, including cursiva formada and cursiva humanistica, [Spain, between ca. 1535 and 1545], two main watermarks, very similar to Briquet 11205 (glove surmounted by flower) and 13757 (serpent); lacking all but the first 3 lines of Chapter 96, the heading and first 20 lines of Chapter 97, all but the first 10 lines of Chapter 159, and the heading and first 10 lines of Chapter 160, occasional stains, several leaves loose from sewing, minor wormholes affecting a few words and many neatly repaired in margins, one closed tear and several other smaller tears, dried residue of cellutape on both pastedowns.  Contemporary Spanish roll-stamped calf, shelfmark "65" written in ink on cream paper spine label with red border; rebacked and recased with later endpapers, front joint splitting, wormholes, somewhat worn.



Folio 1r [later title:] Cronica del rrey do[n] enrique quarto fecha por diego enriquez del castillo su capellan e del su consejo ano mcccclxxv; ff. 2r-9v [table:] Tabla de la cornica; f. 10r [Incipit:] Tanto lo principes senalados y antiguos varones; f. 221 [Explicit:] se muestre mas alegria ni por adversidades senal de alguna tristeza.

Reference:  Aureliano Sanchez Martin, Cronica de Enrique IV de Diego Enriquez de Castillo, Valladolid, Universidad de Vallodolid, 1994, critical edition

important spanish chronicle of king henry iv of castile; excellent example of manuscript production in the early age of printing, with a dozen different scribal hands.  Henry IV (1425-1474) is probably best known throughout history for "reconquering" Gibraltar from Muslim forces in 1464.  He ruled in Spain for twenty years, with his half sister Isabella I successfully battling for the throne after his death in 1474.  Diego Enriquez del Castillo (1431-ca. 1503) served Henry IV as royal historian, an office to which he was appointed in 1460.  The present manuscript has numerous scribal corrections, including strike-throughs of repeated words, and several corrections in slightly later sixteenth-century hands; while this text seems closest to manuscript FB, it does not conform to any specific source given in the apparatus criticus of the 1994 critical edition.  There are only two short passages missing here (see above), one of the losses evidently occurring when the scribe's eye jumped from line 11 in one chapter to line 11 in the next.