Historia de los hechos del Cardenal Gil de Albornoz.

Juan Gines de Sepulveda. Historia de los hechos del Cardenal Gil de Albornoz.

Eds. L. Carrasco Reija, M. Trascasas Casares, and J. Costas Rodriguez. Obras Completas del Dr. Juan Gines de Sepulveda 5. Pozoblanco: Ayuntamiento de Pozoblanco, 2002. cxcvii + 115 pp. index. bibl. n.p. ISBN: 84-930173-0-2.

Cardinal Gil de Albornoz (1302-67) had a very intense, successful career, one that started in the "crusader" environment of the next-to-the-last forward push of the Spanish Reconquest, peaked in Petrarch's Avignon, passed through Boccaccio's Florence, and was posthumously prolonged through his funding of the Spanish College at Bologna, where many Spaniards would get acquainted with Italian humanism. Destined by birth to a life of power and influence, through his prominent family connections both in Castile and in Aragon, Albornoz became an early exponent of the kind of international life we identify with Renaissance intellectuals--not that he was known for his erudition, but rather for his administrative qualities and as a man of action. His studies took him to Aragonese Montpellier and then to French Toulouse, before becoming archbishop of Toledo and privy to King Alfonso XI. In this capacity, he combined his efforts towards the Lateran reformation of the Church with his political and military endeavors. A frequent envoy of the Castilian king before Benedict XII, he would soon become the pope's man in King Alfonso XI's court as well, thus assuming the kind of difficult diplomatic role that would be recurrent throughout his life. Sent to Avignon by a not-so-favorable king (Pedro I), Albornoz left Castile never to return. Having been made cardinal, his ecclesiastical career started to climb at the service of the popes. His past military and diplomatic accomplishments made him Innocent VI's choice to lead two diplomatic/military delegations to subdue unruly subjects in the papal territories of Italy. Here he spent seven years, until he regained the effective control of the papal states, thus preparing the grounds for the popes' return to Rome. Throughout his life he kept on accumulating prestige, power, and immense riches. These he bequeathed to the College of Saint Clement at the University of Bologna, where he left an endowment for 24 students from Spain to pursue their doctoral studies. The college would become an institution of great importance in the Renaissance, not only for promoting Hispano-Italian contacts (a function that continues to this day), but also for becoming a model of newly instituted colleges during the Spanish Golden Age.

The College of Saint Clement provides a young Juan Gines de Sepulveda the occasion for writing a biography of its founder. Having arrived at the Spanish College in 1515, he soon developed a reputation as an excellent Latinist and was eventually commissioned by the rector to rework a fifteenth-century Vita Aegidii by applying more recent historiographical criteria together with a more humanistic style. He probably began writing the cardinal's life in 1517, and the work was printed in 1521.

This is, therefore, a piece of juvenilia, written well before Sepulveda's nomination as royal chronicler (1536) and his established reputation as a political thinker. Nonetheless, such a youthful work already shows his future concerns, putting history at the service of sixteenth-century empire. Albornoz's ability to pacify Italy for the popes was now necessary for the newly elected emperor, Charles V, whose political goal, the monarchia universalis, included a similar submission of Italy. The educational aspects of the cardinal's legacy, however, are not neglected: Sepulveda appended a brief description of the college as well, comprising its building, facilities, rules, and history, including portraits and biographies of celebrated alumni, particularly Antonio de Nebrija.

This volume is the fifth in Sepulveda's Complete Works series, which began with the History of Charles V (1-2), Democrates alter and Apologia (3) and History of Phillip II (4). Like the preceding volumes, it is a true critical edition, using all available versions, and offers an accurate text, in opposite pages, of the original Latin version and Antonio de Vela's Spanish translation (published in 1566). This publication, the fruit of a team of five scholars, is enriched with an appropriate volume of footnotes that provides historical and philological clarifications without overwhelming the text, and two exhaustive introductions that, although wordy and repetitious at times, are nonetheless crucial to the evaluation of Sepulveda's work. The first introductory study, by Malloll, focuses on the biography of Cardinal Albornoz, taking into account different versions of his life to underline not only his role in history but also Sepulveda's agenda in narrating his life. The second, the work of the four editors, consists of different sections regarding the sources, style, textual tradition, philological aspects, and criteria for the edition, all of which is complemented by two indexes of characters and topics and a bibliography. In conclusion, this is a publication whose relevance transcends the figure of Albornoz and will be of interest to Renaissance scholars, particularly those concerned with historiography and neo-Latin prose.

JOSE MIGUEL MARTINEZ TORREJON

Queens College and Graduate Center, City University of New York