Los Principios de Retórica de Aftonio con anotaciones de Juan de Mal Lara realizado por los investigadores de la División de Retórica, Humanismo y Tradición Clásica del IATEXT.

Thursday, 3 March, 2022

The publishing house Ediciones Clásicas has recently published the book Aphtonio's Principles of Rhetoric with annotations by Juan de Mal Lara, which has been written by IATEXT Division of Rhetoric, Humanism and Classical Tradition María Dolores García de Paso Carrasco, Trinidad Arcos Pereira, María Elisa Cuyás de Torres and Gregorio Rodríguez Herrera.

The book presents the edition and translation of the commentary on the Aftonio's Progymnasmata carried out by the Sevillian humanist Juan de Mal Lara. Juan de Mal Lara, whose Philosophia Vulgar is one of the most important works of the 16th century, was a member of a circle of poets, authors and nobles, who met at the Villa Merlina, property of the Count of Gelves, very close to Seville. In Seville, he opened a school and published three manuals dedicated to teaching, some Introductions to Grammatica en Romance, some Annotations on Syntaxis and Phrasis, and the Principles of Rhetorica made by Aphthonio, which was the standard used throughout Europe to teach the first levels of rhetoric. In this manual, Juan de Mal Lara collects his extensive knowledge of rhetoric and exposes it in a didactic way to ensure that his disciples learn to speak and write correctly in Latin and Spanish. His annotations to the Greek rhetor continue the path of the commentaries of the European humanists, Alardo de Amsterdam and Reinhard Lorich, and only his premature death prevented his rhetorical work, which was sent to Mexico for use in American schools, from reaching the diffusion and recognition of his Vulgar Philosophy.

This book is the result of research work carried out within the framework of various research projects, financed by the Government of Spain and contains the edition of the Latin text, its translation into Spanish with numerous notes and glosses to Mal Lara's commentary, as well as an introduction to the work, a glossary of authors and an onomastic and topographical index, which make it possible to highlight the deep knowledge of the Sevillian humanist, as well as his great concern for the didactics of the first levels of rhetoric, which can be seen throughout the commentary.

The publishing house that publishes the book is Ediciones Clásicas, which publishes scientific and academic books on Greek and Latin Philology, Classical Culture, Indo-European Linguistics, the Orient and Instrumenta studiorum, as well as various collections under the name of Ediciones del Orto of recognized prestige in the field of Humanities. In the SPI (Scholarly Publishers Indicators) publishing prestige ranking, drawn up by the CSIC, it has a rating (ICEE) of 90.00 and ranks 12th among publishers in the field of Linguistics, Literature and Philology in the latest rating made by SPI.