Latin classic incunabula printed in Spain: their transmission across the borders

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of how the copies’ of incunable editions of Latin classic authors printed in Spain crossed –and they are still crossing– all kind of borders. The reference corpus of copies’ is made up of incunabula produced in printing houses located in Spain from the 1470s till 1500, including printings in Latin and in translation as well. This study is based on the information from the CICLE Database (Corpus of Classic Latin Incunabula in Spain). These editions represent an extremely valuable testimony concerning the Spanish Renaissance Humanism. Paradoxically, most of the copies are not in Spain currently, but, on the contrary, they have come into different libraries in America and in Europe by varied historical vicissitudes. The investigation carried-up allows to trace the ways of dissemination and the diffusion of cultural heritage materialized in a well identified corpus of copies what are crossing borders since their publication in the XVth century.