‘Curial e Güelfa’ is one of the most important chivalric romances of the European literature and one of the masterpieces of the Catalan literature. But, until now, there were several hypothesis about this novel written in the 15th century regarding its anonymous authorship and when it was written. A thesis carried out by the Universitat de València reveals that the author was Enyego d’Àvalos, camerlengo of Alfonso the Magnanimous.
This Monday, the thesis has been presented in a press conference held in the Cultural Centre La Nau, with the intervention of the vice-principal for Culture and Equality, Antonio Ariño; the director of the thesis and full university professor of Catalan Philology of the Universitat de València, Antoni Ferrando and its author, Abel Soler.
According to Abel Soler, the author of this novel is Enyego d’Àvalos (Toledo?, ca. 1414-Naples, 1484; Íñigo Dávalos, as first name; Inico d’Avalos, for the Italian people): Valencian by adoption (for spending his childhood and adolescence in Valencia, and identifiable as Catalan speaker), great camerlengo of Alfonso the Magnanimous in the court of Naples, patron and correspondent of humanists, knight who organised jousts and captain of Royal Cavalry, owner of the second largest library in the south of Italy (only behind the Neapolitan one), lover of music, letters and arts.
D’Àvalos was exiled in Valencia together with his father, the condestable López Dávalos, when he was 7 or 8 years old. He received education in the Real Palace of Valencia (at that time, in 1416-1430, current capital of the Crown of Aragon and after that, he went to Milan (1435-1440) and became the courtier of the Duke Filippo Maria Visconti and then, ambassador of the King of Aragon (1443-1447). Between his stays in Naples and Milan, in 1445-1448, he must have written a novel in which he shows his knowledge of literary and colloquial Italian (including Lombard language), and familiarity with Lombard geography. A partial inventory of his library helps to identify the literary sources of Curial and explain the novel. It is important the onomastics of the novel (Honorada, Salonés de Verona, Guillalmes del Chastell, Pero Maça-Cornell, Johan Ximenes d’Urrea, etc.), because the fictional characters refer to historical figures related to the biography of D’Àvalos and his closer environment, composed of Valencian nobles of the King Alfonso. The paper of the codex has the mark of “Biscia Viscontea” (symbol of Milan) of the paper used in 1447 in the Milanese court. In the novel, co-starred by the Güelfa, “lady of Milan”, appear some characters related to the courts of Naples and Milan, and some mistakes that only were founded in a Milanese ducal codex. The heraldry weapons that use Curial in honour of his beloved Güelfa (“a rampant lion that crosses the two colours of a broken shield”) agree on the ones that Enyego d’Àvalos took in 1443, when he signed his engagement with the Neapolitan noble Antonella de Aquino. At that time, it was a way of signing the authorship of the novel.
Along with Tirant lo Blanc by Joanot Martorell, Curial e Güelfa is one of the masterpieces of the Catalan-Valencian literature and a jewel of the medieval European literature. A novel of love and chivalry that arrived anonymous at our area. This narrates the training process of a young Italian knight, the Lombard Curial, who will become a virtuous prince and gain the love of Güelfa, after overcoming his moral and emotional weaknesses. The novel is preserved in a unique codex (National Library, Madrid, ms. 9750), in 1450 approximately, with a Mudejar binding from the late 15th century. The novel is a lack of prologue, title and statement of authorship. Since it was discovered (in the middle of the 19th century) and first published (Barcelona, 1901), the novel is presented as a written work by someone of Catalonia. Due to the lack of documentation about the novel, there are some researchers that consider it a copy of Manuel Milà and Fontanals, the romanist who published it (1876). The data of the codex reject this assumption.
The presentation of the research. It is focus on some aspects about the question of authorship, which is only one of the results of the doctoral thesis La Cort napolitana d’Alfons el Magnànim: el context de Curial e Güelfa, by Abel Soler, exposed in the Universitat de València (28-XI-2016) and directed by professor Antoni Ferrando. The thesis carried out by Soler puts the cap on a line of research by professor Fernando, who had decided to identify the authorship of Curial through the profile of a man of letters who turns to many Valencian terms (febra, bambollat, acurtar, mentira, rabosa, la fel, almánguena, etc.) and many linguistic calques and Italian literary sources to write a novel whose preparation is only understandable in the framework of the Valencian and Neapolitan court of Magnanimous. We do not have a document that certifies who is the author of Curial, as in the majority of the medieval and modern works (for example, there is no document that certifies that Ausiàs March is the author of his poems or Cervantes is the author of Quijote), but there are no works like Curial in which the data give information about the author.
Method of the research. All the evidences in this novel indicate that it was written in Italy. Among others, this has been suggested by Antoni Rubio, Antoni Comas, Antoni Ferrando, Júlia Butinyà and Maria Teresa Ferrer. Some of the researchers have even proposed a name for the author. The 39 “Estudis lingüístics i culturals sobre el Curial” (2011), coordinated by Ferrando, shed light on the language and culture of the novel. The study carried out by Ferrando emphasised that the papers removed from the binding of Curial come from the Toledan manor of Fuensalida and decided to link the data and some Castilian prints of the Curial codex with the author. From these data and evidences that provide some clues about the biographic profile of the author, Soler has made the biographic review of those Hispanic courtiers of Naples related to letters or writing (more than 200 figures) and the analysis of all the literary sources and ambient elements of the novel (art, numismatics, geography, heraldry, attire, onomastics “in code”, etc.), and the result is that the unique person who has all these elements is Enyego d’Àvalos.
Relevance of the authorship:
• One of the masterpieces of Catalan literature, Curial e Güelfa, has now an author.
• The “Valencian character” of the novel is confirmed, although it was previously certified by philologists. Also, other philological peculiarities are understandable (Italian, Castilian, Lombard, Neapolitan... terms), thanks to the knowledge of the biographical studies (Toledo, Valencia, Milan, Naples) of Enyego d’Àvalos, native to Castile, Valencian by adoption and captivated by the literary Italian culture.
• It is possible to understand better the content of the novel (after figuring out the names of the persons related to the life of D’Àvalos) and also that the novel transmits ideals and humanistic scenery.
• The name of D’Àvalos could be added to the catalogue of great authors (Ausiàs Marc, Joanot Martorell, Jaume Roig, Joan Roís de Corella, sor Isabel de Villena, etc.) of the “Spanish Golden Age” of the Catalan-Valencian literature. In that time, the novels were located in the court and city of Valencia, but also in the court of Naples where half of courtiers were Valencian and held important positions.
Last update: 27 de february de 2017 12:26.
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