• Historical memory The National Library of Spain recovers more than 400 books deposited in the Valley of the Fallen in 1961

"I have done what I could, Fortuna what has wanted" is the title of an unknown comedy by Lope de Vega that has been discovered in the funds of the National Library of Spain, and that

could be a work in the key of the maturity of the author

with nods to the political situation of the moment.

As reported by the BNE this Friday,

it is the only copy of the princeps

(first of the series), without printing data, from the Sevillian workshop of Francisco de Lyra (1632-1634) and of which not even its title appeared in the lists and documents in which the works of Lope pending to be located are mentioned.

It is a work in which Miguel Bermúdez, an occasional actor and writer, appeared as the author,

but there is strong evidence of Lope's authorship

, as shown by the study of Abraham Madroñal, professor of Spanish Literature at the University of Geneva.

Madroñal is responsible for the find and his study has just been published in the

Olmedo Clásico

collection

at the University of Valladolid.

In the BNE funds there are copies of the preserved editions of the princeps, another without printing data and two copies of this printed in Seville, already in the 18th century where Miguel Bermúdez appears as the author. Although in reality, the comedy belongs to Lope de Vega, the same playwright who just a

few months later would create "Punishment without revenge", a masterpiece of universal theater

.

It is a comedy written in the last vital and artistic stage of Lope, called

senectute,

"as sad personally as it is full of art"

, indicates the BNE. The same one in which he creates some of his masterpieces, such as

El punigo sin venganza

, with which he shares reflections of his personal disappointments, such as the satirical taunts against José de Pellicer.

According to the institution, there is overwhelming evidence of Lope's authorship, as shown by the Madroñal study, which has used both the traditional resources of philology and those recently provided by digital technology to prove it. There are hundreds of expressions and even the complete verses of "I have done what I could" that are identical to others already written by Lope de Vega, belonging to a very wide variety of works,

which constitutes practically irrefutable proof of authorship

.

Computational stylometry has also tested agreement with Lope de Vega's theater lexical statistics guidelines

, as well as tests based on orthology. For his part, Germán Vega, professor of Spanish Literature at the University of Valladolid and member of the ISTAE project (Loose prints of the ancient Spanish theater), has also identified the find as coming from the Sevillian printing house of Francisco de Lyra.

This workshop published the work in the name of Miguel Bermúdez between 1632 and 1634, that is, when Lope was still alive

, according to the BNE. He explains that it is not yet understood why the same printer who at that time indiscriminately attributed the comedies of other playwrights, including

Calderón's

Life is a Dream

, denied Lope authorship in this case.

Madroñal's study maintains that it

could be a work in code, behind whose characters and events significant figures and episodes of the political life

of the moment

were disguised

, in which the family of the Duke of Sessa, Lope's protector, was involved.

Especially his brother, Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, in need of vindication after Felipe IV dismissed him as governor of Milan in 1629 for his failure in the war of succession of Mantua and Monferrato.

According to the BNE,

this finding is only a part of what remains to be discovered in the library collections

, especially in the section of Spanish theater from the Golden Age.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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