No. 01 (2012)

The kings Isabel I of Castile (1451-1504) and Fernando II of Aragon (1452-1516), well-known with Catholic Monarchs title, granted by Pope Alexander VI in 1496, made wide use of devises or imprese as a personal way of representation. Some of them were incorporated to the coat of arms of Spain during their reign, and today we can still see them sculptured in the stone of buildings of 15th and 16th centuries, painted in walls or ceilings or embroidered in flags. Several historians and philologists have tried to make sense of the main imprese used by these kings, but they have succeeded only partially. Emblems provide important information in order to understand the meaning (as it was in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries) of the imprese with the motto TANTO MONTA. Besides that well-known devise, the Catholic Monarchs used others to which little attention has been paid till now.

While the digital edition has made enormous progress since the advent of the web, there is also much that we still don't know how to achieve. I examine a number of editions and some things they have taught us. Then I discuss a few open questions regarding digital editions: how to involve volunteers in the creation and upkeep of the edition, how to lower the cost of creating editions and how to deal with threats to their longevity.

José Pellicer de Tovar's Avisos constitute an important element in the history of the news media in 17th-c. Spain. Being a weekly manuscript news service for the benefit of one or more private clients, the Avisos followed similar lines to the Italian gazettes studied by Mario Infelise. The present study aims to analyse Pellicer's Avisos by setting them against other news media of his time, in particular earlier Spanish gazettes, the series of numbered news letters and the relations attributed to Andrés de Almansa y Mendoza, the French Gazette founded by Théophraste Renaudot, the private correspondence of Quevedo, and the so-called relaciones de sucesos.

Review on the book Emblematic Images & Religious Texts. Studies in Honor of G. Richard Dimler, S. J., edited by Pedro F. Campa and Peter M. Daly in Filadelfia, Saint Joseph’s University Press, 2010, Early Modern Catholicism and the Visual Arts Series, vol. 2, 364 pp., ISBN: 978-0-916101-61-9.

Review on the book: Lucía Megías, José Manuel, Elogio del texto digital, Madrid, Fórcola ediciones, 2012, 148 pp., ISBN. 978-84-15174-30-1

Review on the Book of Honors for Empress Maria of Austria Composed by the College of the Society of Jesus of Madrid on the Occasion of her Death, which provides partial translation into English, facsimile edition of the hieroglyphics and preliminary study of the Libro de las honras que hizo el Colegio de la Compañía de Jesús de Madrid, a la M.C. de la Emperatriz Doña María de Austria… by Antonio Bernat Vistarini, John T. Cull and Tamás Sajo, published in Philadelphia: Saint Joseph's University Press, 2011, in the collection "Early Modern Catholicism and the Visual Arts Series", vol. 5, pp. 240. I.S.B.N.: 978-0-916101-73-2.