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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
El scholástico, written by Cristóbal de Villalón in the second quarter of the sixteenth century, is a typical philosophical treatise of the Renaissance, the most striking evidence of which is its very extensive employment of figures and learning from Classical literature. All but a handful of the 57I different names which appear in El scholástico, and a large majority of all materials used therein, originated in the period before A.D. 500.
A complex treatise, approximately two-thirds the length of the New Testament, El scholástico reflects at once a Renaissance ideal and a classical tradition in its setting, literary form, and format. The dialogue, which is essentially Ciceronian in style (although Villalón states that his models for the dialogue were Plato and Macrobius), represents a lengthy interchange between illustrious contemporary scholars of the University of Salamanca.
1 The ten illustrious scholars whom Villalón names as interlocutors in his dialogue are not counted in this figure, nor is Bonifacio, the elderly retainer of the Duke of Alba, who takes part in the discussion on Old Age. For information on the identity of the scholars see Bataillon, Marcel, Erasmo y España, trans. Alatorre, Antonio, 2nd Span. ed. (Mexico, 1966), p. 656 Google Scholar (this work was originally published as Érasme et l'Espagne [Paris, 1937]; citations hereafter will be to the 2nd Span, ed.); see also Angel M. Armendariz, “Edition y estudio de El scholdstico de Cristobal de Villalon,” Ph.D. Diss. Catholic Univ. of America 1966, pp. liv-lvi. The names occuring in Villalón's marginal notes are not included since they merely indicate names which are repeated in the text at hand.
2 The ideal model which Villalón aims at developing is for the training not of a prince but of a student. Many points traditionally developed in the genre of the speculum principis, however, are treated in El scholástico, e.g., on the practice of virtue, the study of ethical works, on being silent much and on weighing carefully what is to be said before speaking, on being facile in adorning light conversation with appropriate donaires, and on matters of dress and demeanor. Literary works on the training of young men who are to become rulers or worthy citizens have early exemplars in Isocrates’ Ad demonicum and his discourses addressed to Nicocles, the young king of Cyprus, all of which were written 3 74-372 B.C. (see Norlin, George, trans., Isocrates, I, Loeb Classical Library (London and New York, 1928), p. 2 Google Scholar. In Ad nicocles 40-41 (p. 63) Isocrates acknowledges that he is incorporating in that work many precepts long known in his own day. For a chronological development of works falling in this genre starting with those of Isocrates and continuing up to Erasmus’ Institutio principis christiani (Basel, 1516), see Bom's preliminary study “On Erasmus and on Ancient and Medieval Political Thought” in his The Education of a Christian Prince, by Desiderius Erasmus, trans, and introd. by Born, Lester K., Records of Civilization, Sources and Studies, 27 (New York, 1936)Google Scholar.
3 de Villalón, Cristóbal, El scholástico, ed. Pelayo, M. Menéndez y, Sociedad de Bibliofilós Madrileños, 5 (Madrid, 1911), Prohemio, pp. 15–16 Google Scholar.
4 El scholástico. En el qual se forma vna academica republica / o scholastica vniuersidad, con las condiçiones que deuen tener el maestro y dicipulo para ser varones dignos de la viuir [sic]. In the present study, quotations in Spanish are reproduced from the text of the source without alteration of spelling, punctuation or capitalization.
This study is based, unless otherwise noted, on the Kerr edition of El scholdstico (see Cristobal de Villalon, El scholdstico: Edicion critica y estudio, por Richard J. A. Kerr, Clasicos Hispanicos, Serie 2, Vol. 14 [Madrid, 1967]). In his Nota Preliminar, Kerr states concerning the irregularities in his edition: “Aparte de la modernización de las abreviaturas corrientes como n̄r̄ō, q̄ y dllōs, y de la normalización de agrupaciones caligraficas con preposicion (v. g. ala, alos, dela, delos, enla, enlas), se ha respetado la ortografia quinientista y bastantes veces arbitraria o equivocada, y la puntuacion, de Villalon” [p. vii].
5 “Este es mi vnico hijo… . Si con su gragia y saber aplaziere, sera la gloria de su padre y regoçijarme he por aver açertado en cosa que me dé glorioso galardon, pues las buenas letras y escriptura suelen ser vn divino balsamo con el qual se conseruan los hombres incorruptos en eternal tiempo; … a lo menos consolarme he con que vivira en este libro para siempre entero mi coraçon” (El scholástico, ed. Pelayo, Menéndez y, Prohemio, p. 5)Google Scholar.
6 El schotastico … hechopor el licenciado Cristobal de Villalon, Academia de la Historia, Madrid, MS. 12-7-1; N-46, Colecciçn Salazar.
7 El scholastico … Hecho por el liçençiado Villalon, Biblioteca del Palacio de Oriente, Madrid, MS. N-1974.
8 See Kerr's Notapreliminar [p. vii] to El scholástico. Kerr calculates this manuscript to have been finished some four years later than the Menéndez y Pelayo MS. For a discussion of the time frame related to the writing of the two manuscripts, see Kerr, Richard J. A., “Prolegomena to an Edition of Villalon's Scholástico ,” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 32 (1955), 130-39CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Armendariz, “Estudio de El scholástico,” pp. xxii-xxv.
9 The Menéndez y Pelayo edition actually has two Prohemios, one of which appears to contain a partial revision of the other. Both include a long section in which Villalón names and explains many of his sources. The Prólogo found in the Kerr edition seems to be a more polished version of the partial revision, but the section on sources is entirely lacking.
10 In the Prólogo of the Kerr MS., an emended version of the Menéndez y Pelayo MS., Villalón states that he was ten years in the writing; presumably the twenty years of study he claims would also have been increased by four years, making a total of twentyfour years of continual study.
11 Opdycke, Leonard Eckstein, trans., The Book of the Courtier, (1528), by Castiglione, Count Baldesar (New York, 1901 Google Scholar; 2nd ed. with corrections, 1903). The index of this edition was compared with the present writer's index of El scholóstico.
12 See Highet, Gilbert, The Classical Tradition: Greek and Roman Influences on Western Literature (Oxford, 1949), p. 701 Google Scholar, n. 2 on Chapter 23, in which Highet summarizes Cooke's, J. D. “Euhemerism: A Mediaeval Interpretation of Classical Paganism,” Speculum, 2 (1927), 396–410 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, an article that discusses the ready applications that “the early Christian propagandists” found for the theory that pagan gods were once men.
13 Schol. 4.16, fol. 139v (p. 217). Citations herein to El scholdstico will follow this form which gives the numbers of book, chapter, and folio of the manuscript; the page number of the Kerr edition is in parentheses.
14 For a development of this topic, see p. 389 ff. below.
15 See Frank Justus Miller, trans., Metamorphoses, by Ovid, Loeb Classical Library (London, and Cambridge, Mass., 1936), Vol. II, Index. This index was compared with the present writer's index off/ scholastico.
16 Vives on Education: A Translation of the De tradendis disciplinis of Juan Luis Vives, trans, and introd. by Foster Watson, rpt. with foreword by Francesco Cordasco (Cambridge, 1913; rpt. Totowa, N.J., 1971), p. 239.
17 Highet, , Classical Tradition, p. 189 Google Scholar
18 Honeywell, Roy J., The Educational Work of Thomas Jefferson, Harvard Studies in Education, Vol. 16 (New York, 1964)Google Scholar, Appendix P, p. 284.
19 Villalón lists “Volaterano” among his source authors but provides no identification. It is reasonable to assume that he refers to Raffaele Maffei of Volterra (1451-1522), who collected a wide variety of data from the past in his Commentariorum urbanorum liber I (XXXVIII), published in three volumes in 1506 in Rome and subsequently several times in other places during the first half of the sixteenth century (The National Union Catalog Pre-1956 Imprints, 1974 ed., s.v. “Maffei, Raffaele, of Volterra“). Vives names Raphael of Volterra among other authors whom he commends for study in a rTroad education. He refers to several subjects treated in Raphael including philology, anthropology, and ancient geography, and he cites Raphael and Pliny as sources on “gems, metals, and pigments” (De tradendis disciplinis, trans. Watson, pp. 114, 151, 170, 207, 247).
20 Of the four stories on Friendship in Book I, one is indicated by Villalon to be from Lucian's Toxaris and has the original Greek setting. The other three are told as contemporary happenings, but two of these have also been adapted from the Toxaris. The fourth is a tale taken from folklore that served as the basis of Lope de Rueda's El convidado and also of one of the stories in El crótalon, an anonymous Spanish work of the middle of the sixteenth century (Kerr, “Prolegomena,” pp. 211-12). Villalón, author of El scholóstico, has been proposed as the author of El crótalon also, first in 1905 (see Marcelino Serrano y Sanz, ed., Viaje de Turquia, in Nueva Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, 2 [Madrid], pp. cx-cxxiii), and subsequently in 1973 by Joseph J. Kincaid in his indepth study on Villalón, the works known to have been written by him and others that have been attributed to him (see Cristobal de Villalón, Twaync's Authors Series: A Survey of the World's Literature, TWA 264 [New York], pp. 30-36 et passim).
Armendáriz (pp. lxviii-lxix) has indicated a possible identity for four persons who appear with titles as well as surnames in one of the tales in Book II, Ch. 13, that deals with the black arts.
21 Archduke Ferdinand of the Hapsburgs, brother of Charles V, was chosen king of Bohemia and Hungary in 1526, and, largely through the influence of the emperor, was elected king of the Romans in 1531.
22 See n. 8 above regarding the date of completion of El scholástico, which was not published until the twentieth century. Works known to have been published by Villalón are: Tragedia de Minha (Medina del Campo, 1536; rpt. Madrid, 1926); Ingeniosa comparación entre lo antiquo y lo presente (Valladolid, 1539; rpt. Madrid, 1898, Sociedad de Bibliofilós Españoles, Vol. 33); Provechoso tratado de cambios y contrataciones de mercaderes y reprovacion de usuras (Valladolid, 1541, rpt. 1542, and by the same editor a revised and augmented edition, 1546; there was also a 1542 edition in Seville. Cf. Una obra de Derecho mercantil del sigh xvi de Cristobal de Villalon, fac. ed. [Valladolid, 1945] of the 1546 ed.); and Villalón's final publication, the Gramática castellana (Amberes, 1558). See Bataillon, , Erasmo y España, p. 656 Google Scholar, nn. 9 and 10, and pp. 658-59, text and n. 17.
23 Beardsley, Theodore S., Hispano-Classical Translations Printed Between 1482 and 1699, A Modern Humanities Research Association Monograph, Duquesne Studies Philological Series, 12 (Pittsburgh, Pa., and Louvain, Belgium, 1970), p. 156.Google Scholar
24 Starnes, DeWitt T. and Talbert, Ernest William, Classical Myth and Legend in Renaissance Dictionaries (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1955), p. 3.Google Scholar
25 For a recent study on the question, see Pigman, G. W. III, “Versions of Imitation in the Renaissance,” Renaissance Quarterly, 33 (1980), 1–32 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
26 Seneca, Epistulae morales 79.6, cited in Percival Vaughan Davies, trans., intro. and notes, The Saturnalia, by Macrobius, Records of Civilization: Sources and Studies, Vol. 79 (New York and London, 1969), Appendix B, p. 520.
27 See p. 395 below regarding Villalon's extensive employment of exempla from pagan works rather than from the holy writings of the Church.
28 For a full comparison of parallel passages in De senectute and El scholástico and analysis of textual alterations made by Villalon, see the present writer's “Cristobal de Villalon: Erasmian Humanist of the Renaissance in Spain as Evidenced in his Masterwork, El scholdstico,” unpublished M.A. thesis Univ. of Miss. 1978, Pt. 1, Ch. 2.
29 Cicero, , De senectute, De amicitia, De divinatione, trans. Falconer, William Armistcad, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1953), p. 27 Google Scholar (De senectute 6.17.
30 See Beardsley, Nos. 17, 45, and 55. One of several translations by Cartagena of the De senectute was in print by 1501; there is no known reprint, and the next published translation of the work was by Thamara in 1546.
31 “… puesto caso que[elpiloto] no muestre trabajar tanto como los mançebos que traen el remo / y como el que limpia el nauio / y como los que disponen las cosas nescesarias con las corporales fuerzas / es çierto que el piloto trabaja mas: pues con su sciençia industria y buen arte y consejo saca el nauio a puerto de luz” (Schol. 1.14, fol. 27v [p. 50]).
32 Beardsley, Nos. 5, 25, and 42. Selections from the Metamorphoses were published in translation in 1490 and 1519, see Nos. 5 and 25. Bustamente published a full translation of Books I-XV in 1543?, as documented by Beardsley in No. 42 and on p. 154.
33 Beardsley, Nos. 5, 25, and 42. Selections from the Metamorphoses were published in translation in 1490 and 1519, see Nos. 5 and 25. Bustamente published a full translation of Books I-XV in 1543?, as documented by Beardsley in No. 42 and on p. 154b.
34 Bataillon, Erasmo y España, p. 656, text and n. 8. This information came to light in the record of a suit brought by Villalón in 1537 charging his employers with nonpayment for services rendered.
35 Beardsley, Theodore S. Jr., “An Unexamined Translation of Plutarch: Libra contra la cobdicia delas riquezas (Valladolid, 1538),” Hispanic Review, 41 (1973), 171 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
36 See Beardsley, , Translations, pp. 119, 120-21; see also Palau, Vol. 13 (1961)Google Scholar, pp. 327a-329b.
37 See Beardsley, , Translations, pp. 149 Google Scholar ff.; see also Palau, Vol. 4 (1951), p. 463.
38 See Oldfather, C. H., trans., Diodorus of Sicily, Loeb Classical Library, (London and New York, 1933), I Google Scholar, Introduction, p.xxiii.
39 See Beardsley, , Translations, p. 149 Google Scholar and No. 48; see No. 46 regarding some excerpts from Aristotle and others, published in 1546.
40 In the dedicatory letter to Villalón's first published work, Tragedia de Mirrha (1536), he states that he will soon have ready the manuscript of “el libro de la republica scholar que he scripto.” This would refer to the earlier version of El scholástico. Kerr states that this is the only existing reference to the date of the compilation of the treatise (“Prolegomena,” pp. 132-33).
41 Marcel Bataillon made a critical analysis of Villalo/n's defense of the pagan heritage in El scholástico, demonstrating that four chapters (of 65) followed very closely the Antibarbarorum liber of Erasmus. He examined Ch. 2 in Book II, and Chs. 5, 8 and 9 in Book III, and demonstrated that the Antibarbari was the primary source of their development. See Bataillon, “Heritage classique et culture chretienne a travers ‘El scholástico’ de Villalón,” in Redondo, Augustin, ed., L'Humanisme dans les lettres espagnoles. XIXe colloque international d'études humanistes, Tours … 1976 (Paris, 1979), pp. 15–29 Google Scholar.
42 ”… que la gramatica se deue enseñar a los muchachos / con vn psalterio / con vn centones / y con la gramatica de vn santoral y latin de himnos y ora- [fol. 38 r.] Clones … y destestan y maldizen las buenas lettras de los antiguos como Horaçio / Persio / Juuenal / Margial / Ouidio / Terençio y Lucano / Virgilio / Salustio / y Tito liuio diziendo: que estos corrompen los juueniles juizios con figiones gentilicas: y que muestran a los mançebos la lasciuia del amor y el satiricar y morder a todos: y inclinan a los desasosiegos y tumultos de las batallas y guerras… . [y] introçugen viçios y malas consumbres” (Schol. 2.2, fols. 37v38[p. 66]).
43 “”… en lugar de vn çuidio y sus fabulas sera mejor vn çentones y vn Sedulio: que en lugar de las troyanas guerras y Romanas sediciones de Homero / Virgilio / Lucano / Titoliuio sera mejor ingerir vn sanctoral que tracta de la vatalla que tuuieron los sanctos martires por Christo … y vnas homelias… . Y que en lugar de las satiras y epigramas y comedias de jubenal / Marçial y Terençio [fol. gsr,\ se deuen tomar vnos himnos / Caton y oraçiones y vnos disticos… . “ (Schol. 3.8, fols. 94v-95 [p. 146]).
44 ”… los quales estan prenados de muy altas sentenc̃ias para regla dc nuestra vida y costumbres… . porque sus juizios groseros no alcanzan a specular el meollo de la alta philosophia que debajo de aquella gcntilica trãa y cortẽa esta eñerrada: los quales si depuesta y dexada su ignorañia rustica sinticssen destilar el ̃umo de sus scntencias, hallarian el verdadero nectar y ambrosia manjar de dioses… . “ (Schol. v8, fol. 95 [p. 146]).
45 El libro de Isopete, ed. Mori, Emilio Cotarelo y (Madrid: Real Academia Espanola, 1929)Google Scholar. This edition is actually a facsimile of the third edition (Johan Hurus, Zaragoza, 1489) though it was believed by Cotarelo to be the first edition. The first and second editions, Toulouse, 1488 and 1489, were unavailable to the present author, and thus there may be some variation between the text cited and the original publication. Authority for this data is Beardsley, Translations, No. 3, which contains a full discussion of the early editions of this translation.
46 Beardsley, “An Unexamined Translation of Plutarch,” p. 170; see also Beardsley, Translations, No. 3.
47 ”… mas antes dela doctrina enella cõ[n]tenida y enxerida para alcã[n]çar buenas costumbres y virtudes. y p [ar]a esquiuar y guardarse delos malos vsos chupã[n]do y tomã[n] do assi en via[n]da dcla anima y del cuerpo” (fol. II). This quotation presents the analogous example with which the translator concludes an apian simile in which he first presented the example of the bees whose natural judgement leads them to disregard the color of the flowers, which is of no use to them, and seek only their honey, which is beneficial.
48 ”… en las muy esteriles historias y fabulas suyas ay muy gran doctrina y exemplo si le [fol. 98 v.] sabemos escudriñar. Que tiene Plutarcho que no sepa a sancto? Que tiene Platon que no sea diuino? Que tiene Lucjano que no sea prouechoso? Que tiene Tullio que no sea moral? Que tiene Seneca que no sea religioso? Que hazen Marcjal / Juuenal / Persio / Tcrencio sino reprchendcr vicjos? Que hazen Titoliuio / Valerio / Aulogelio / Lucano / Virgilio y Homero, y todos los otros que escriuieron historia sino conseruar las vidas de los gloriosos varones en eternal fama: y dar exemplo para que los suscesores siguan la virtud?” (Schol. 3.9, fol. 98-98v[p. 152]).
49 ”… si a ellos les falto ser Cristianos por ser en aquel tiempo, yo lo supliria pues me hallo eneste” (Schol. 3.9, fol. 98 [p. 151]).
50 “Y asi me paresce a mi que muchos de aquellos virtuosos philosophos se pudieron saluar: y prinçipalmente aquellos que en el siguimiento y vso deste bien fueron constantes hasta la muerte regidos por natural razon… . Asi que no es de presumir … que criasse dios estos hombres para el infiemo … mas que despues de bien auer viuido en ley de naturaleza aqui les diesse dios la gloria alia” (Schol. 1.10, fol.18v[p. 36])… . the masters of our academy and university will always read to their disciples the writings of the ancient sages and eloquent philosophers, orators, historians and poets, because truly in them is to be found true doctrine, incorrupt Latinity, elegance of speech, and example of good customs. (Schol. 3.8, fol. 93” [p. 144])
51 Pigman's essay develops three versions of imitation whose dividing lines, he states, are not always distinct: (a) following, which is essentially transcription, (b) imitation, characterized by transformacion, and (c) emulation, in which there is “critical reflection on or correction of the model” (p. 32).
52 Bataillon has detailed Villalón's use of the Antibarbarorum liber in “ ‘El scholástico’ de Villalón” (1979; see n. 41 above). His critique opened with a retraction of his statement made in Érasme et l'Espagne in 1937 (see Erasmo y España, pp. 661-62) that there was not a trace of Erasmism in El scholástico. In the reversal of his earlier stand Bataillon noted the refutation of his statement by Kincaid, who asserted that Villalon was a follower of Erasmus and in proof of his position compared representative passages from El scholástico and the Enchiridion of Erasmus (see Cristóbal de Villalón, pp. 134-37). The present writer's M. A. thesis, “Villalón, Erasmian Humanist” (1978), sought to further demonstrate Villalón's Erasmism with quotations from El scholãstico paralleled with typical passages from several works of Erasmus.
53 Bush, Douglas, Classical Influences in Renaissance Literature, Martin Classical Lectures, Oberlin College, Vol. 13 (Cambridge, Mass., 1952), p. 19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
54 “A mi parescer teneis señores formado ya vn tan perfecto scholastico con vuestras leyes y qensuras / y vn tan conforme maestro para el, que no seria locura afirmar: que el maestro seria conuenible para el mayor prinçipe del mundo, y que nescesaria el discipulo en breue tiempo fuesse otro tal: porque en lo que toca a la essençial formaçion no ha quedado algo por dezir” (Schol. 4.2, fol. 105v [p. 163]).