Codicological notes about some Siete Partidas’ witnesses

Abstract

The basic duty of every researcher who deals with the edition of any manuscript text, and even printed, is the direct examination of all the witnesses. Alberto Blecua also indicated that "ancient descriptions (...) of manuscripts are extremely important" (1983, p. 38). The field work carried out in the libraries and archives that preserve the copies of the Siete Partidas and the analysis of many of old descriptions have shown us that they should be used with due caution since little attention was paid in them to the materiality and textual content of those witnesses. These three codicological notes result from the careful collation of old inventories and direct analysis of the originals. In the first section I argue that a manuscript copy held at the Archivo Histórico de la Nobleza (Toledo) is based on Díaz Montalvo’s incunabula of the Siete Partidas. The second section shows that the initial table of BNE ms. VITR/4/6 was relocated there when the definitive volume was created and rebound during the second half of the 15th century. The third note shows that BNE ms. 8721 contains a complete but mutilated copy of the Siete Partidas.