The Sources of the Spanish First Book of Political Devices

• Main Author: Nieves Pena Sueiro
• Format: Article
• Language: Catalan
• Published: Universitat de Girona; Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona 2015-12-01
• Series: Studia Aurea: Revista de Literatura Española y Teoría Literaria del Renacimiento y Siglo de Oro
• Subjects: empresas de los reyes de castilla; gómez de la reguera; empresas políticas; autores clásicos; fuentes; máximas para príncipes
• Online Access: https://studiaaurea.com/article/view/110

The <em>Empresas de los Reyes de Castilla</em>, by Francisco Gómez de la Reguera, is the earliest known Spanish book of political devices published in Spain. This essay examines the work’s iconographical and textual sources, demonstrating not only the author’s erudition, but also his role in the spread of European emblem works in Spain. Like other humanists, its author fills his text with quotations and references. These show him making use of very varied materials: European books of devices and histories of medals and coins being his main sources of inspiration, along with Classical writers, such as Tacitus, Cicero, Seneca and Pliny the Younger. More revealing still is his use of sources that, for various reasons, he does not identify, such as Lipsius and Typotius. Curiously, Gómez de la Reguera also cites a number of sources that he shares with Saavedra Fajardo, with both authors coinciding even in reproducing the same errors.