Historia de la Passio de Nostre Senyor Deu Iesucrist

Historia de la Passio de Nostre Senyor Deu Iesucrist

A marvelous collected volume concerning the Passion of Christ and the life of the Virgin Mary was published on January 11th, 1493 in the Valencian printing house of Pedro Hagenbach and Leonardo Hutz, who were likely of German origin. The incunabulum, a rare early printed book originating from before 1501, is a compilation of three works combined and printed at the behest of Jaime Vila. The fascinating specimen of the so-called Valencian school of poetry presents the transition between the medieval and Renaissance styles and includes works by Joan Escriva, Bernat Fenollar (1438-1516), Jaume Gassul, Pere Martines (d. 1463), Joan Moreno, and Joan Rois de Corella (1435-97). A total of 130 masterful woodcuts adorn the various Valencian texts, which are clearly printed in an elegant Gothic script. This is a truly splendid specimen of poetry marking a historic and tumultuous epoch!

A Relic of the Valencian Language

As a result of never having been recognized as an official language for a long time, to modern usage of Valencian is in decline, although efforts continue to be made to revive the use of this historic collection of dialects. Valencian has a mix of features from Ibero-Romance languages such as Catalan and Gallo-Romance languages like Occitan. These features vary by degree: some dialects can be categorized among the Western group of Catalan dialects while others can be grouped with the Occitano-Romance languages. Regardless of its technical classification, Valencian has been tremendously important for the development of the Spanish language and furthermore, the first books printed on the Iberian Peninsula were in Valencian and their distribution resulted in a sprinkling of Valencian in the other languages of Spain. Indeed, Valencian literature and poetry enjoyed a golden age during the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance and this fine codex is a splendid specimen of the flowering of art and technology that occurred in that time and place.