VILLENA, ENRIQUE DE

Los doce trabajos de Hercules.

VILLENA, ENRIQUE DE.

Los doce trabajos de Hercules. Printer: Antón de Centenera. Zamora, 15th January 1483. Size: 27,8 x 20,8 cm. 30 leaves (60 pages). Gothic lettering. Provisional lower case or hollow in blank letters for the initials. 11 illustrations in metal conducted with the xylographic technique.

Typically Spanish incunabulum, in which Antón de Centenera offers in his Zamora printing houses, in 1483, the first edition of the famous book of Enrique de Villena (1384-1434), which was first written in Catalan and translated by the very author. As written by a medievalist, it is a medieval essay of mythological exegesis.

The author who has gone down in literary history framed within a certain atmosphere of legend, offers us a work of symbolic character, using mythology for establishing moral rules. His prose is typical of the era, using all the latinizing resources fashionable at the time.

The illustrations are without doubt by the Spanish artist, with the curious case that despite the "Works of Hercules" being twelve, in this incunabulum there are only eleven reproductions, with the battle of the centaurs missing.

-Our edition: Valencia, 1995. Coedited with the Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid.

-Edition of 3.000 copies, numbered by notary and signed by the printer-publisher.

-Binding: Parchment on wooden board.

-Presentation case cloth lined with gold engraved leather spine containing facsimile and study in Spanish.

-Specially made laid paper.

-Study in Spanish. Conducted by Vicente Escartí Soriano (Lecturer of the Faculty of Philology of the University of Valencia). Included in Bibliofilia Antigua III.