A note on «Diferentes 30»¹

Victor Dixon

University of Manchester

Most important Golden-Age plays, even if they were also published by their authors or as sueltas, appeared in at least one of the many contemporary collections -quarto volumes, normally, containing twelve comedias. But these collections, to the despair of intending editors, and despite the labours of such scholars as La Barrera, Salvá, Cotarelo, Restori, Palau y Dulcet and Simón Díaz, still stand in need of a thorough and comprehensive bibliographical study. Hitherto, the curious problem which I have encountered in connexion with one such collection -the «thirtieth part» of the arbitrarily-numbered series Comedias de diferentes [or varios] autores- has barely been noticed, let alone explained. Diferentes 30 appears to have run to at least four different editions, printed in three different years, at two different places; but examination of such specimens as have come to my notice shows that the facts about its publication are less complicated than this would suggest.

A volume at the Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid, and an apparently identical one at the Biblioteca Universitaria, Bologna, seem to have been printed at Zaragoza in 1636. Their preliminaries and text may be described as follows:

The verso of this second (and last) preliminary leaf is blank; the volumes have thus no tasa, no fe de erratas, and no aprobaciones except the licencia described.

Collation : p2 A-Z8 2A-2I8 (last leaf missing, probably blank).

Pagination : (i-iv) + I-510².

Contents (with the attributions given in the headings):

There is no colophon, but one may note the following typographical features:

• (A) a small square composed of four ornaments, at the end of La donzella de labor (E7r)
• (B) a clumsy heart-shaped block, at the end of Ofender con las finezas and Persiles y Sigismunda (O6v and 2D5r)
• (C) an inverted pyramid composed of 45 star-ornaments, at the end of El guante de Doña Blanca (2G1r).

The paper of the two preliminary leaves, in both these volumes, is clearly different from that of the text. We might wonder, therefore, even if their evidence were not called in question by that of other volumes, whether or not they were genuine and contained genuine information about the printing of the plays. But on investigation one finds that they are in fact to be trusted. I have not found the block on the title-page in any work of the period published by the Hospital Real of Zaragoza, or by anyone else. Very similar blocks were popular, however, with various printers of the sixteen thirties³. Again, the licencia on the verso of the title-page seems to be authentic. Almost identically-worded ones are found in both editions of Diferentes 25 (Zaragoza, Hospital Real, 1632 and 1633) and in Dr. Martín Carrillo's Anales cronológicos del mundo (do., 1633); all three of these were subscribed by Dr. Juan Berbegal, who also commissioned the aprobación of Diego Niseno's Asuntos predicables (do., 1632), and issued the imprimatur for Forma instituendi confraternitatem Sacri Scapularis (do., 1633). The typographical features of the text, moreover, supply «internal evidence» that it was indeed printed by the Hospital Real. The block (B) was used in both editions of Diferentes 25, in Carrillo's Anales, and in the two editions of the Rimas of Lupercio and Bartolomé Leonardo de Argensola printed by the Hospital in 1634⁴. We can be sure, therefore, that the text of our two volumes was printed where their preliminaries state; and 1636 seems a likely date.

We must consider some other specimens of Diferentes 30. The Bibliothèque Mazarine, Paris, has one with preliminaries which state that it was printed at Zaragoza, by the Hospital Real, but in 1638.

The verso is blank.

The verso of this second (and last) preliminary leaf is blank. The text of the plays can be stated -after the comparison of ornaments, misprints and other typographical details- to be identical with the 255 leaves of our first two volumes; to belong, that is, to the same impression.

The Mazarine has in addition a Diferentes 30 with preliminaries which state that it was printed by the Hospital Real in 1639.

The verso is blank.

Once more the text which follows is found to be identical with that in our first two volumes.

A volume at the British Museum and an apparently identical one at the Vatican purport to have been printed at Seville in 1638.

The verso is blank.

The verso of this second (and last) preliminary leaf is blank. Yet again the 255 leaves which follow are identical with those already described⁵. The preliminaries of these volumes, as the reader may have noticed, are very like those of «Zaragoza 1638». The title-page even bears the same coat-of-arms, and so gives the lie to its own claim to have been printed at Seville; for the block is one often used by the bookseller Pedro Escuer of Zaragoza and Huesca on the title-pages of books published at his expense⁶.

Another specimen of Diferentes 30 is to be found at the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, Paris; but this lacks all preliminaries as well as all the last play, except for the first page of it. The 466 pages of text it does contain are identical with their counterparts in the other volumes⁷.

From the foregoing discussion it seems clear that a single impression of Diferentes 30 was printed by the Hospital Real, Zaragoza, probably -though not certainly- in 1636, and issued in that and subsequent years with a variety of different preliminaries -as the demand arose, perhaps, rather than with any preconceived intention to deceive. The result might well confuse the student or editor of today; but he may be consoled by the knowledge that for the text of Diferentes 30 he need not consult all the volumes here described, but can use simply any one of them.