According to the UCO, with the title Elegantiae terminorum ex Laurentio Valla et aliis collectaethe work is a summary extracted from The Elegances of the Italian humanist Lorenzo Vallaprinted by the Dutch typographer Gerard Leeu in Antwerp and which represents a new way of approaching learning the Latin language because it treats, as if it were a dictionaryabout the most common meaning of words, the context in which they are used and how to differentiate them from others of similar meaning.

The discovery of the work, whose existence was suspected due to another copy included in the catalog for the auction of the library of a old dutch noblemanbut of which a physical specimen had never been found, allows us to complete the map of the so-called incunabula, the first books that were printed from the time Gutenberg developed his movable type printing press and printed the first book with it (1455) until the end of the year 1500. In fact, the work has already been included in a German catalog (Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke) that collects all the existing incunabula editions.

With other incunabula

Solana’s discovery is not limited only to The Elegances, since this work was bound within a volume along with five other incunabula. Two of them are also “rare” specimens, in the words of the researcher: one of them is the only complete specimen.or preserved from the Parisian edition by Antoine Caillaut (1483) from the Ars memorativa of Jacobus Publicius, which includes a booklet with engravings with mnemonic techniques for memorizing speeches, and the other is an edition of a sermon by San Agustin (Oxford, Rood & Hunte, around 1483) of which only one other copy survives in the United Kingdom. Added to them are a work attributed to Aristotle (Secreta secretorum), but which is actually an Arabic work about advice to a prince to govern well, Cato’s Couplets with didactic and moral advice or the teachings of a father to his son to speak well and know when and how to speak or remain silent (Of art loquendi et tacendi of Albertano of Brescia).

The themes of all of them are similar: related to didactic, moral and behavioral aspects. According to Solana, this common characteristic is one of the reasons why copies printed in different countries (mainly in the Netherlands, but also in France or the United Kingdom) between 1483 and 1487 ended up bound together. As if the person who owns the volume had wanted to group a collection of books. And that person was possibly William Hewster, a clergyman and professor at the University of Oxford and dean of the institution between 1483 and 1489 whose name appears in one of the cuts of the book and who, due to his profession, could be interested in these topics.

These specimens, like many books current ones, have annotations in the margins that highlight the content and indicate what that specific part is about, helping those who were reading it. In total, there are annotations corresponding to five different people, written between the 15th century and the 17th century and some of which are already in Spanish. However, it is unknown when the book arrived in Córdoba. Solana works with the possibility that it came from Leopold of Austria, bishop of Córdoba between 1505 and 1557, or someone from his entourage. Leopold of Austria was the illegitimate son of Maximilian of Austria, brother of Philip the Fair and George of Austria, bishop of Liege, and uncle, therefore, of Emperor Charles V and Mary of Hungary, who was governor of the Netherlands.