Andres Gonzalez de Barcia and the Creation of the Colonial Spanish American Library.

Jonathan Earl Carlyon. Andres Gonzalez de Barcia and the Creation of the Colonial Spanish American Library.

Studies in Book and Print Culture. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006. x + 254 pp. index. illus. bibl. $55. ISBN: 0-8020-3845-X.

Long the object of derision by Continental European scholars, Spain has often been maligned by phrases such as "Europe ends at the Pyrenees" and "Africa begins at the Pyrenees." Above all, because of its rich multicultural past--declared by Americo Castro as a wonderful "convivencia," or "living together"--Spain was often rejected by its more homogeneously Christian neighbors as barbarous, crude, and backward. This thinly-veiled prejudice was often cloaked in the facetious garb of objective scholarship, which over the centuries has developed into the ugliest form of anti-Hispanic condescension. Fortunately, as scholars the world over educate themselves regarding the countless intellectual contributions Spain has made to the global commonweal, the more the baseless myths about Hispanic ignorance and sloth are being relegated to the dustbin of antiquated, Eurocentric history. Jonathan Earl Carlyon's timely, and carefully researched, study makes a significant contribution to this positive process of desengano (awakening) to the vibrant intellectual life of Spain during its period of Enlightenment (1680-1760, according to Carlyon, who follows Pedro Alvarez de Miranda). Noting that this is the period of the founding of the Royal Library (today's Biblioteca Nacional) in 1711 and the Royal Academy of the Language (Real Academia de la Lengua) in 1713, the publishing of the Dictionary of Authorities (Diccionario de autoridades) between 1726 and 1739, and the founding of the Royal Academy of History (Real Academia de la Historia) in 1738, Carlyon focuses his study on the life and work of Andres Gonzalez de Barcia Carballido y Zuniga (1673-1743), an eminent intellectual who produced some of the finest work of the Spain of the period.

Holding a variety of administrative posts in the government of Philip V, such as Superintendent of the Royal Manor, High Judge of Royal Rents and Goods, Governor of the Hall of Mayors of Court and Country, and a member of the ruling Council of Castile, Gonzalez de Barcia is best known today for his scholarly work. One of the principal participants in the tertulia organized by Juan Manuel Fernandez Pacheco, the Marquis of Villena, Gonzalez de Barcia was instrumental in the founding of the Royal Academy of the Language and the publication of the Dictionary of Authorities, and had amassed one of the greatest personal libraries of anyone in his generation. Yet he would be known best for the grand project he undertook in the 1720s, that of editing the Chronicles of the Indies. Carlyon quickly maps his own project: "My book is an effort to write an intellectual history of these developments. I show how Andres Gonzalez de Barcia created what we might call the first comprehensive 'colonial Spanish American library'" (7). As Carlyon further shows, Gonzalez de Barcia did this by a twofold process: first, by editing rare and out-of-print texts and manuscripts from Columbus's voyages through all of the conquests of Mexico, Peru, and Rio de la Plata; and, second, by editing and greatly expanding the celebrated catalogue of the Indies, the Epitome de la Biblioteca Oriental i Occidental, nautica i Geografica, which had first been published by Antonio de Leon Pinelo in 1629.

Yet, as Carlyon also shows, there was much more to Gonzalez de Barcia's project than simply writing bibliographies: it also involved correcting false data and guiding readers to reliable sources. And here lies the significance of Gonzalez de Barcia's seemingly isolated, scholarly work. His was a political campaign as well as an intellectual crusade: that of rehabilitating the image of Spain, which had been so tarnished through the years by European enemies who were eager to prove the truth of the Black Legend, even at the cost of falsifying data. Carlyon shows, concisely yet comprehensively, how Gonzalez de Barcia dramatically changed the definition, and our understanding, of the function of scholarly resources such as dictionaries, libraries (bibliotecasl librerias), archives, indices, footnotes, histories, and, especially, bibliographies. Indeed, Carlyon's greatest contribution to scholarship lies in his detailed examination of the paratext, a concept that he borrows from Gerard Ginette, and which he applies brilliantly to the work of Gonzalez de Barcia, proving the Spaniard to be a master of its use: "Therefore, in this book I attempt to return our attention to his prefatory writings, marginal notes, intercalated commentary, and detailed indices in order to demonstrate that by creating the colonial Spanish library, by producing these critical, scholarly editions of many of the New World historical texts still used today, Andres Gonzalez de Barcia prepared the foundations for much of the modern study of Colonial Latin America" (14). Also of interest is Carlyon's examination of the pseudonyms Gonzalez de Barcia employed to carry out his mission of correcting false information.

This book, a practical study of Gonzalez de Barcia's work, is divided into five chapters, each of which considers, chronologically, a phase in the development of his scholarly endeavor: first, "Andres Gonzalez de Barcia as Commentator in the First Phase of His Scholarship on the Historiography of the Indies"; second, "The Epitome de la Biblioteca, Before: Seventeenth-Century Conceptualizations of the Bibliographical Mission: Antonio de Leon and Nicolas Antonio"; third, "The Epitome de la Biblioteca, After: Bibliography as a Reflection of Andres Gonzalez de Barcia's Intellectual Project for New World Scholarship"; fourth, "Andres Gonzalez de Barcia's Creation of the Spanish American Library and His Edition of Gregorio Garcia's Origen de los Indios"; and, fifth, "The Index as a Scholarly and Political Tool in the Americanist Editions of Andres Gonzalez de Barcia." Carlyon has made a most valuable contribution to students of the Spanish Enlightenment and Latin America, and to all those awaiting more balanced evaluations of European cultural hegemony.

MARK DE STEPHANO, S.J.

Saint Peter's College