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Manuscripts & History
Lot 2:
MANUSCRITO. [CRÓNICA DE D. SEBASTIÃO]. s. XVI.
Manuscrito sobre papel, 199 ff.; 330 mm. Full calf from the 17th or 18th century with wormholes on spine; some browning and satains on text leaves; wormholes on margins on the first ten folios.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION:
The Biblioteca Nacional (Portuguese National Library) had informed us of their interest in this lot. That means, according to portuguese law, that after the sale, they have pre-emption right. If their interest remains after the sale, the lot will be sold to them.
Important manuscript from the 16th century containing the Crónica de D. Sebastião that Herculano attributed to Fr. Bernardo da Cruz, but which, according to some investigators, cannot belong to this author. The manuscript is composed of 199 unnumbered folios, written in late 16th century handwriting and a final folio from the 17th century, quite legible and with several marginal handwritten notes, coeval. It has small defects, particularly on the first four folios with marginal moth cuts and some acidity. On the first folio you can read three inscriptions. The first, a signature “Mel Correa 593”, a second signature “DRº da Cunha” and a third inscription, more faded, where you can read the following: «This book is mine and has been stolen for more than five years. I don’t give it to anyone who has it and I am obliged to return it or give it to my beneplacito Mel Correa on January 4, 1609» It seems, therefore, that the codex belonged to a certain Manuel Correa, impossible to identify by us and D. Rodrigo da Cunha. This may be D. Rodrigo da Cunha, Bishop of Portalegre and Archbishop of Lisbon, a very important figure in the history of the Restoration. It is also certain that the codex belonged to the Library of José Nepomuceno, having been sold at the auction of his Library and, later, in the Library of the Conde de Ameal, as can be seen in the respective entries in the catalogues. In a handwritten note by José Nepomuceno inscribed on the first endpaper, we can verify that the codex, after having belonged to Manuel Correa and D. Rodrigo da Cunha, “was bought by the Marquês do Lavradio and sold with the rest of his bookshop by the Bank of Portugal on the 28th of June 1876 and bought by me for 700rs.” The authorship of the manuscript is quite complex. Nepomuceno attributes the work to Agostinho Gavi de Mendonça, author of a “History of the Siege of Mazagão” and a native of that city in North Africa. This opinion, according to the same note, was shared by Cunha Rivara. Herculano, however, when he published this chronicle in 1837, attributed its authorship to Fr. Bernardo da Cruz, an attribution that Nepomuceno himself refutes in a handwritten note on the back of the title page. Queirós Veloso, in 1950, also refutes the attribution made by Herculano, attributing the work to António de Vaena. The argument presented by Queirós Veloso is, it seems to us, quite solid in the part that refutes the authorship of the text attributed to Fr. Bernardo da Cruz. In particular, the date of the death of Fr. Bernardo da Cruz, first half of 1579, with temporal references in the text. In chapter 37, the text refers to the death of Francisco de Sá de Menezes, Count of Matosinhos, who died on September 3, 1584. In chapter 87, when referring to the ransom amount due to the Sheriff to free nobles imprisoned in Fez, the era of 86 is referred to as not yet having been fully paid. In short, refer to dates that Fr. Bernardo da Cruz could not have known. He also presents other diplomatic arguments, in particular through the study of various manuscripts, both those that Herculano saw and others, older ones. It seems, therefore, that the author of this chronicle will not be Fr. Bernardo da Cruz. In the context of this catalogue, it is impossible to carry out paleographic and diplomatic studies that could shed more light on the subject. We can, however, leave some notes using the Herculano edition, the only one we have access to, as a reference. This codex is entirely in letter from the end of the 16th century, beginning of the 17th century. When comparing the order of the chapters, they appear exactly as they were published in the Herculano edition, with none missing. Also, in the vast majority of cases, the text at the beginning and end of chapters are the same. Here, however, it is curious to see that the manuscript has several amendments that are coeval to the initial text and it is these amendments that correspond to the text that Herculano published. There are also some text parts that are crossed out in this codex, indicating its cancellation. These cancellations, some of them of great length, are of texts that are in different versions of those that were published by Herculano. There are some notes, also coeval, in the margin of the manuscript. Finally, the codex has a final sheet, with letters from the 17th century, in which it adds text to the final chapter of the Chronicle, a text that does not appear in the Herculaneum edition. In the context of this catalogue, it is impossible to determine with certainty the precedence of this codex over the others known, but it is certainly one of the oldest and older than the copies used by Herculano, making it a very valuable and very precious document for the study of this text. . Added to this factor is the importance of the text itself, indisputably written by a contemporary of the events reported, who knew very well the reality and history of the peoples of North Africa and who understood early on the centrality of the African campaign in the reign of D. Sebastian.
Translated by Google Translate.
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