1. Thus Bembo's literary theory is at odds with his reputation as a Neoplatonist, which is based on the love theory of his 1505 dialogue Gli Asolani , and on the speech "he" gives in book 4 of Castiglione's Cortegiano .

2. On the role of Bembo's letter to Pico in the evolution of imitation theory, see Santangelo; Greene, 171-77; and Cruz, Imitación , 24-26. Bembo's rejection of a metaphysical, inspirational theory of poetry approximates twentieth-century hermeneutic and phenomenological approaches that emphasize reading and writing; see Kennedy, 1-2, 16-18, particularly his references to Gadamer and Ingarden.

3. Bembo's arguments here are an echo of the trope of the translatio studii , which was to become crucial for the Renaissance outside Italy; see the section below on "Spanish Alterity and the Language of Empire."

4. Thus to Ferguson the idea of a "renaissance," in contrast to other period concepts such as both "antiquity" and "middle ages," is rooted in the cultural self-consciousness that existed at the time. By deriving our characterization of the "Renaissance" from the self-concept of the humanists, the term can be historicized, freed on the one hand from nineteenth-century Burckhardtian associations, and distinguished, on the other, from our own set of period concepts; see Waller, 5-8; also Kerrigan and Braden, 7: "The movement that counts, what we now call humanism, takes decisive form under Petrarch's inspiration and influence in the fourteenth century and is accompanied from the first with propaganda about its historic momentousness.''

5. To Curtius, the creation of new tropes such as these can signal a major historical transition, for tropes "reflect the sequence of psychological periods. But in all poetical topoi the style of expression is historically determined. Now there are also topoi which are wanting throughout Antiquity down to the Augustan Age. . . . They have a twofold interest. First, as regards literary biology, we can observe in them the genesis of new topoi . Thus our knowledge of the genetics of the formal elements of literature is widened. Secondly, these topoi are indications of a changed psychological state; indications which are comprehensible in no other way" (82). Thus just as ancient tropes have a history that can be traced, so too do modern tropes such as the tripartite model of history, the idea of a Renaissance, the pairing of Petrarch and Boccaccio (as models of learning or of ignorance), and many

other expressions used by the humanists; and the development of these new tropes is indicative of the psychological changes that characterize period boundaries.

6. For a typology of Renaissance tropes that describe "following," transformative imitation, and emulation, along with their classical sources, see Pigman.

7. For the sake of consistency all quotations from Petrarch's Familiares (English: Letters on Familiar Matters ) are taken from the translation by Aldo Bernardo.

8. For a nuanced Bloomean approach to Petrarch's poetry that takes as its point of departure his theory of history, see Waller.

9. Curtius's chief concern here is to reject Burkhardtian and essentialist notions of the renaissance as a "real" event in history (5-6), rather than as a change in perception expressed through certain tropes. To Curtius, the true revival of Latin literature occurred in twelfth-century France (53-54, 255), and Spain had hardly any share in this movement (385-87); as a consequence, its development of a vernacular literature lagged considerably behind the French. On the other hand, Spain's continuing medievalism contributed to the strength of those features of the Baroque which entailed a revival of medieval culture (on this point see Díaz y Díaz). Curtius calls this phenomenon the cultural "belatedness" of Spain (541-43).

10. Curtius locates the origin of this notion in Ecclesiasticus 10:8, "sovereignty passes from nation to nation on account of injustice and insolence and wealth." In the West, this passage was first used to explain the translatio imperii , the rise and fall of empires and the shifts in political domination; later, it became a justification for the legitimacy of the Carolingian empire (29). Yet the movement that granted legitimacy to the Carolingians would not do very much for sixteenth-century Frenchmen or Spaniards claiming to be the true heirs of Rome; thus, like the Italian humanists shifting the date of the "renaissance," they constantly postpone the date of the transfer and argue that the events of their own day constitute the true movement of culture away from Italy.

11. These statements in praise of Santillana are clearly a form of panegyric; while Curtius warns us against taking such tropes as literal statements of fact or true sentiment, they do reflect a predisposition to believe that culture is in need of revival, that warriors are insufficiently dedicated to letters, etc.

12. Born Antonio Martínez de Calar y Jarava into a middle-class family in the village of Lebrija (the ancient Nebrissa Veneria), forty-five miles south of Seville, Nebrija studied at Salamanca and then at the Spanish college in Bologna, where he spent a decade. Upon his return to Spain he occupied a number of academic posts and also served powerful members of the church hierarchy and the nobility. In 1481 he published a Latin textbook, the Introductiones latinae and, at the request of the queen, prepared a Spanish translation (published about 1486); during the late 1480s and 1490s he wrote and published his Latin-Spanish dictionaries, his Spanish grammar, and other

works. In later years he participated in the preparation of the polyglot Bible and in 1514 was awarded a special chair of rhetoric at the new University of Alcalá. Along with his philological accomplishments, Nebrija was instrumental in bringing the printing press to Salamanca: the second book published in the city was his Introductiones , and he may also have directed the press, a situation necessarily covert because its mercantile associations would have been incompatible with a university position. Both his son and his grandson became printers, however, and most of the incunables published in Salamanca were either by Nebrija or by authors connected to his circle; he was also the first author to claim a copyright in Spain. On his connections to the press see Haebler; Cuesta Gutiérrez. Information on Nebrija's life, drawn primarily from autobiographical assertions in the prologues to his works, can be found in the Quilis edition of the Gramática , 9-18, from which I also quote.

13. On the implicit positing of a medium aevum during this fourteen-hundred-year gap, and its connection to the historical theories of the Italian humanists, see Guerrero Ramos.

14. Generally, however, Nebrija relies not so much on literary usage as on aristocratic norms, giving the grammar, in spite of the prescriptive bias of the prologue, a decidedly descriptive slant (see Zamora).

15. Encina was born in or near Salamanca in 1468, and was probably of converso origin. His father was a shoemaker, but the poet received a university education. He may have studied with Nebrija; the latter alludes in the grammar to a friend writing an art of poetry (see Quilis), while Encina himself refers admiringly to Nebrija, and the 1496 volume is one of several books by members of Nebrija's circle published in Salamanca during those years (and by the same press as had printed Nebrija's grammar). From 1486 Encina sang with the cathedral choir and served as a page to Gutierre Alvarez de Toledo, chancellor of the university and brother of Fadrique, the second duke of Alba, and in 1492 Encina passed into the latter's service as master of ceremonies, a sort of poet, composer, and dramatist in residence. Yet this post seems to have proved frustrating, for while it allowed him to associate with the highest levels of the aristocracy, he had become in essence a glorified servant (see Andrews and, most recently, Yarbro-Bejarano and ter Horst, "The Duke and Duchess"). In 1498 he failed to obtain the post of choirmaster at Salamanca, and shortly thereafter left Spain for Rome, where Alexander VI, Julius II, and Leo X successively were his patrons. Up to 1523 Encina divided his time between Rome and Malaga, where he was officially archdeacon until 1519. In that year, he was appointed prior of the cathedral chapter at León and was ordained a priest. He took up residence at León in 1523, and died there in 1529 or 1530.

16. A modern edition of the "Arte" can be found in volume 1 of the Obras completas , from which I cite; Rambaldo's introduction contains biographical information about the poet and a useful summary of earlier scholarship. Among the studies of the treatise, that of Andrews remains remarkable for its assessment of the work in terms of Encina's psychological and

social preoccupations; in many ways Andrews's book launched modern Encina scholarship. See also Shepard, 19-22; López Estrada; and the two studies by Clarke, which emphasize the prosodic aspects of the work.

17. Andrews comments extensively on this passage, noting how the false modesty of "mi flaco saber" results in a strong dissociation of word from intent (77-80).

18. The attempt to appropriate ancient authors such as Seneca and Quintilian to the national tradition as Spaniards was common in the fifteenth century; see Di Camillo, 124 and Weiss, 12, 233.

19. Andrews sees the notion of posthumous fame as something of an obsession for Encina, and differentiates it from Nebrija's messianic remarks (172 n. 9). Yet surely the concern with personal fame is related both to the worry about the nation's cultural future and to Encina's desire for fame in his own lifetime.

20. Etymologically copla means "couplet"; the rule of four is an echo of the earlier couplets of two sixteen-syllable lines, which were subsequently divided into their component hemistichs.

21. López Estrada connects Encina's concern with "galas" with the medieval, sound-oriented poetic tradition (156-57 and 161-62); to Martí (37, 87), this emphasis tied Encina to the medieval poetic tradition and disqualified the "Arte" from being a true Renaissance Ars .

22. On the theoretical significance of the concept of "secondary" writers, see Il

minore

23. Various points of view on Bloom's relevance to the study of Renaissance imitation may be found in Javitch, "Imitations of Imitations," 216-17; Colombí-Monguió, 138-39; and most recently Mariscal, 107.

24. These categories are not dissimilar to Pigman's notions of "following" and "dissimulative" imitation, and (as Bakhtin himself concedes) while the theoretical distinctions are clear, differentiating between parody, stylization, and imitation in the concrete historical examples of particular texts is far more difficult and partly a matter of judgment on the reader's part. On parody see, in addition to Bakhtin and Hutcheon, Todorov, 68-74; O. M. Freidenberg, "The Origin of Parody," in Semiotics and Structuralism [1976], 269-83; Bromwich; and, in a Spanish context, Cruz, Imitación , 46-48; and Sánchez Robayna.

25. As Bloom himself expressed it, his "chief purpose is necessarily to present one reader's critical vision, in the context both of the criticism and poetry of his own generation. . . . A theory of poetry that presents itself as a severe poem, reliant upon aphorism, apothegm, and a quite personal (though thoroughly traditional) mythic pattern, still may be judged, and may ask to be judged, as an argument" ( Anxiety , 12-13). He also notes the crucial relationship between revisionary misreadings and the construction of the canon ( Map , 35-37). See also Lentricchia: "No theorist writing in the United States today has succeeded, as Bloom has, in returning poetry to history" (342).

26. See Alonso, Poesía española , 19-42; and Paul Julian Smith, Quevedo , 5-11.

27. The history of Spanish Petrarchism is treated by Manero Sorolla in a useful but brief chapter consisting mostly of a listing of poets, major and minor, belonging to the various generations, with pertinent bibliography (83-102).

28. Even-Zohar's model also accommodates Raymond Williams's categories of dominant, emergent, and residual elements in a culture (121-27), profitably used by Mariscal in his discussion of Petrarchism (37, 110).