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On 27 April, the Biblioteca Histórica de la Universitat de València presented the book by Josep Lluís Martos El primer cancionero impreso y un pliego poético incunable, published by the Iberoamericana/Vervuert publishing house, which studies the only preserved copy of the first of the Hispanic poetic incunabula and the possible lost literature of this document.
Committed to the dissemination and study of the collection it preserves, the Library organised this presentation to promote greater knowledge of the valuable bibliographic heritage of the University of Valencia.
The author, professor of medieval literature at the University of Alicante, presents in his work the detailed study he has carried out on two works preserved in the Biblioteca Histórica de la Universitat de València and which constitute authentic bibliographical jewels: a poetic sheet included in the factitious volume known as El Natzaré and the incunabulum Les trobes en lahors de la Verge Maria, published in Valencia in 1474 on the occasion of a literary contest held in the city.
The former is a printed sheet of the Salve Regina by Pere Vilaspinosa. Its typographical analysis has made it possible to revise the dating of the work to the period between 1491 and 1495, making it an incunabulum (printed book prior to 1501) and not a post-incunabulum. Likewise, its edition has been attributed to the workshop of Peter Hagenbach and Leonardo Hutz. These data make this printed document the first Valencian sheet of a strictly poetic nature of which there is any record.
With regard to the incunabulum Les trobes en lahors de la Verge Maria, Professor Martos' publication brings to light new data and shows that the only surviving copy is mutilated and that it lacks what must have been the first colophon of the Valencian printing press. The author raises the possibility that part of the poems of this competition and of the incunabulum of 1474 may have been lost. He also points to the existence of a later edition printed in gothic script which must have been the direct source of the sheet of the Salve Regina. These findings represent a great step forward in the history of Valencian printing and in the knowledge of the bibliographic heritage of the University of Valencia.
The presentation took place in the Duque de Calabria room of the Biblioteca Històrica del Centre Cultural de la Nau.
At the presentation of the book El primer cancionero impreso y un pliego poético incunable, the results of this research were presented in a lecture by the author, Professor Josep Lluís Martos, from the University of Alicante, who introduced Marta Haro Cortés, Professor of Medieval Literature at the University of Valencia.
The vice-rector of Research at the University of Valencia, Carlos Hermenegildo Caudevilla, and the director of the Historical Library, María Jesús García Mateu, also took part.
