{"id":12273,"date":"2020-11-13T12:30:33","date_gmt":"2020-11-13T11:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.facsimilefinder.com\/articles\/?p=12273"},"modified":"2022-06-02T07:26:12","modified_gmt":"2022-06-02T06:26:12","slug":"interview-divine-comedy-alfonso-aragon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.facsimilefinder.com\/articles\/interview-divine-comedy-alfonso-aragon\/","title":{"rendered":"An Interview With the Divine Comedy of Alfonso of Aragon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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You were named after one of the most prominent rulers of the Renaissance. How does it feel like to bear his name?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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You humans have a funny thing about names. I’ve seen so many kingdoms, libraries, and countries in half a millennium <\/strong>that I can hardly remember all of them, and you ask me about my name?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alfonso was my first owner<\/strong>, so I guess it makes sense to call me by his name. But my beloved patron was only a very small part of this troubled journey<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn’t know how lucky I was to be part of one of the greatest libraries of the Renaissance<\/strong> until 1501, when the Spanish and the French invaded our kingdom<\/strong> and I was condemned to a life of turbulent travels<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What happened to you after the invasion?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To protect me and the other books from destruction, Alfonso’s heir Federico decided to transfer us to the island of Ischia<\/strong>, which wasn’t very far from home. But that wasn’t enough: soon after, we moved to the castle of Plessis-lez-Tours<\/strong>, in a country you now call France.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/span>The Spanish Inquisition<\/strong> erased three text passages from my folios<\/span><\/div>\n\n\n\n

When Federico died in 1504, his wife Isabella del Balzo<\/strong> moved back to the Italian peninsula and took us with her. You’d think we were glad to be back home but our new mansion was in Ferrara, a swampy town in the north that had nothing to do with Naples<\/strong>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By then, I had settled for a restless existence<\/a><\/strong>, and I was fortunate enough to be the first manuscript listed in the “Vernacular poets” section of our new catalog. After all, only 800 books <\/strong>from the original library were left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Can you tell us about your life in Spain?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It was the darkest hour of my life. One morning, I literally woke up in another country, in the monastery of San Miguel de los Reyes<\/strong> in Valencia<\/strong>. And then in 1612 Bernardo de Sandoval y Rojas, one of Spain’s most feared inquisitors<\/strong>, published a list of text passages to be erased from certain manuscripts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was such a humiliating experience<\/strong> that the full Latin name of the document is still inscribed in my mind: Index Librorum Prohibitorum et Expurgatorum … D. Bernardi de Sandoval et Roxas … Generalis Inquisitoris …<\/em> The following year Antonius Ollet <\/strong>opened me and effaced three passages of my text.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As if that weren’t enough, he ruined the marvelous ending of the Divine Comedy by describing his criminal actions in a note.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Who was your favorite owner?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As much as I consider Alfonso of Aragon my “father”, Mr. Henry Yates Thompson<\/strong>, who kept me in his collection from 1901 until his death in 1928, holds a special place in my heart<\/strong>. I believe I’ve never seen anyone so passionate about knowledge before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How would you judge someone who strives to collect the world’s 100 most valuable volumes<\/strong> in one single place? You would probably think he is crazy, or naive, because let’s be serious, beauty cannot be judged objectively. But he never gave up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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