(Juan II, King of Castile) | A rare chronicle of King Juan II

(Juan II, King of Castile)

Comiença la Cronica del Serenissimo Rey Don Juan el Segundo deste nombre, impressa en la muy noble y leal ciudad de Logroño: por mandado del catholico rey don Carlos su visnieto… Logroño: Arnaldo Guillen de Brocar, 1517

Folio (360 x 245 mm). Large woodcut to title, 2 full-page woodcuts, printer's device below colophon, text printed in red and and black; 4 small wormholes touching a few letters to leaves of quire q, generally crisp. Contemporary blind-tooled calf; professionally rebacked, refurbished, with new clasps, endpapers renewed, some wear to corners, spine rubbed.

First edition—only two other copies have been offered at auction in the last 50 years.

Published by Arnão Guillen de Brocar at the command of Charles V, this chronicle is described as “one of the most sumptuously printed of early Spanish books” (Lyell, Early Book Illustrations in Spain). The printer moved and opened offices frequently due in part to his increasing reputation and significant activity. Brocar would begin printing in Pamplona in 1490, then moved to his workshop in Logroño, where the present work was completed with new Gothic letter and commentary types, devices, and some of the woodcut initials of Brocar's press. Crónica was one of the final works printed in Logroño shortly after his appointment to royal printer to Charles V. It would be during the printer's appointment to the University of University of Alcalá de Henare that Brocar would produce other fine works like the Complutensian Polyglot Bible (see lot 305).

Succeeding his father at age two, Juan II of Castile's rise and maintenance of his royal authority was a casualty due to the influence of the meddling nobleman, Álvaro de Luna. Using the King's favor to become one of the most powerful men in Spain, it's unsurprising that Crónica's attitude towards de Luna and his relationship with the King would be favorable. Beginning with the death of Juan II's father, Enrique III, the present work is organized by years of his reign subdivided into chapters. Crónica culminates with the death of King Juan II and his final years of unstable reign without the shadow of de Luna. Significant in his lackluster reputation as a statesman and remembered by his impressionable disposition, Juan II had the longest rule within the Trastámara dynasty. Suspected for involvement in a murder at court, Luna's reign of influence ended when Juan II, now under the influence of his second wife, had his former favorite beheaded—the final episode of the work.

The authorship of the chronicle has been much debated with numerous bibliographic entries listed solely under "Chronica." The prologue is written by Álvar García de Santa María with the colophon noting corrections by doctor Lorenço Galíndez de Carvajal.

REFERENCES

Palau 64966; Lyell, Early Book Illustration in Spain, pp.285-8; Haebler, Early Printers 49, 119; Norton, Descriptive Catalogue, 427; Updike, Printing Press II, 47, 65; Ward, Oxford Companion to Spanish Literature, p. 305; Ticknor Catalogue, p. 266; Salvá 3117; Heredia 3131; not in Adams