Iluminar la ley : Texto e imagen en las Siete Partidas

Abstract

During the 13th to 15th centuries in Europe there was a growing flourishing of law as a consequence of the ‘rediscovery’ of Roman law, as well as the development of canon law. The result of this renewed interest was the development of books illustrated with cycles and figurative scenes related to the content to be dealt with: the illuminated legal book was born. In fact, not only were copies of the main civil and canonical legal works illuminated, but also vernacular legal texts, such as Alfonso X's Siete Partidas. In this publication, which is a continuation of the work El corpus medieval de las Siete Partidas: catálogo de manuscritos y fragmentos published by Dykinson, analyses the Partidas from the perspective of the materiality of the manuscript corpus and, in particular, from its figurative and ornamental repertoire, the correspondences between text and image, as well as the relationships between the material agents involved in the creation of the manuscripts and the commissioners and owners, In such a way that it can serve as a reference study on the illumination and legal iconography of the Partidas, given that, despite the existence of specific works on some copies, no overall study of the image in the codices of the Partidas has been carried out to date.