Seven chapbooks printed in Cuenca by Juan de Cánova

Abstract

In this paper, we study from a bibliographic point of view seven chapbooks, one in prose and the rest in verse, which are bound in one volume preserved in the Biblioteca Comunale Augusta, Perugia, catalogued under the shelfmark [I L 1402]. Some of these editions include the place (Cuenca) and the date of printing (1557 or 1558). From this information and from the formal analysis of the seven editions, it is possible to ascribe all of them to the press of Juan de Cánova. Two of the seven chapbooks transmit poems that we have not located in any other handwritten or printed source, as far as it has been achieved in our research. Furthermore, the fact that one of these poems is in Catalan and has a Valencian author (Onofre Almudéver) makes us suspect that those chapbooks, at least in part, were printed at the request of a bookseller established in Valencia.