Páez de Castro, List of Greek manuscripts in the library of the Cardinal of Burgos, Rome, ca 1550, single sheet

PÁEZ DE CASTRO, JUAN. A manuscript list of the Greek manuscripts in the library of Francisco de Mendoza y Bobadilla, bishop of Burgos. [Rome, ca 1550]

A CONTEMPORARY RECORD OF THE PASSION FOR GREEK MANUSCRIPTS AMONG SPANISH HUMANISTS. Páez de Castro (1510-1570) was a Jesuit priest who travelled around Italy with Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, acquiring manuscripts for many collectors, including Hurtado de Mendoza and Mendoza y Bobadilla, and later persuaded Philip II to establish a library at the Escorial. This list contains 20 works in 14 volumes, which were copied recently for Mendoza y Bobadilla, and gives the number of leaves per volume.

Francisco de Mendoza y Bobadilla (1508-1566) was a Greek scholar, having been a pupil of Erasmus, as well as a churchman; he lived in Rome in the later 1540s, where Páez de Castro worked as his librarian. His library was extensive, and while he hoped that it would be acquired for the Escorial, Philip II declined, claiming it was too expensive. All but three of these manuscripts are now in the Biblioteca nacional in Madrid.

This leaf was part of a set of bound Spanish manuscripts which contained other manuscript lists of books and libraries by Páez de Castro. It was in the collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps.

Single sheet, folio (295 x 212 mm), containing a list of 17 Greek manuscripts, written on one side of the sheet only, with creases from previous folding and a crease down left hand side showing where it was previously bound into a volume. (Slightly soiled on verso, some holes along folds.)

Provenance: [Carlos Antonio Laserna de Santander (1752-1813)] — Thomas Thorpe, sold to — Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872), part of MS 4135. Acquisition: Purchased in 1999 from H.P. Kraus, New York