Fénix 10, 188-202

194 FENIX composition. I t wo u l d appear to be after 1492, or, indeed, after the first use of the expression "four parts", although there ir, no allusion to :ELe New World in the Pedro narrative. It was therefore probably written after 1507, the date of W~'?dseemiiller's Cosmographiae Infrodvcbio, the first work in which America is referred to as the fourth part of the world, the work which propo- sed that t h ~ s "quarta orbis pars" be called America. 16. I n the M~dd l eAges the words partes and partidas were apparently used iilterchangeably in geographical terminology, a t least in Spanish. For some reason, however, partidas and not partes was used in the early editions of the Don Pedro. Now the Siete Partidas of Alfonso el Sabio was first printed in 1491. 17 I t was reprinted in the same year 18 and went through some 14 ad- ditional editions throughout the sixteenth and first decade of the seventeenth centuries. 19 There is then a long hiatus, and it began to be reprinted with the edition of Valencia, 1757-58. I t is possible that the original Gómez de Saatisteban narrative was written around 1491 and that its original title had the medieval number siete in combination with the noun partidas due t o Alfonso el Sabio's work. 20 When the geographical expression change from "seven parts" to "four parts", the title likewise changed from siete t o quatro (as it was then spelled), but partidas was retained. Then later in the sixteenth century the number siete returned t o join the noun partidas either because of the influence of the Siete Sabios de Roma or because of the continuing inte- rest in the iSete Partidas of Alfonso el Sabio. 21 Frei Fortunato de S. Bosven- tura incidentally made a correct observation concerning the title, but on a wrong assumption. Believing that al1 editions had "seven parts", as in the Portuguese ti ,,dition, he wrote : Nao me pertenece esquadrinhar a direccao das suas viagens [Dom Pedro's], que foram tantas, que d'ahi ficou entre nós como em proverbio que este infante correu as sete partidas do mundo, o que 16 See recto of 13th leaf of both the April 25, 1507, and August 29, 1507, editions. The phrase "four parts of the world" long persisted in the liter,ature of travel, as is evidenced by the title Les Voyages fameux du Sieur Vincente le Elanc, marseillois, qu'il a faifs, depuis I'age de douze ans jusqrres á soixante, aux quafre parties du monde.. . Paris, 1648. The worci partes has also had a long history in Spanish. The full title of Pero TaIur's travel narrative as published in 1874 is thus Andoncas é viajes de Pero Tafur por diversas partes del mundo avidos. The word is here applied to travels which took place in the Infante Dom Pedro's life-time. 17 Seville, finished on October 25, 1491; see Palau y Dulcet, Manual, 2nd ed., 1, 203- 204. 18 Soville, finished on December 24, 1491. There is a copy of this edition in the library of the Law School of Harvard University. 19 Palau y Dulcet lists the following, although he is not certain of al1 of them. Those marked with an asterisk are at Harvard. Venice, 1501; Burgos, 1508; Burgos, 1518; Burgos, 1528; Venice, 1528; Alcalá de Henares, 1542::; Medina del Campo, 1542; Lyon, 1550:::; Salamanca, 1555:x; Salamanca, 1565"; Salamanca, 1576; Valladolid, 1587-88; Medrid, 1587-98; Madrid (Maguncia), 1610:::. 20 It may not be without significance that the inventory of the library of King Duarte of Portugal (Dom Pedro's older brother) contains the following; entry: "Livro da pri- neira partida". See Antonio Caetano de Sousa, Provas, 1 (1739), 546. 21 No:ie of the printers of Alfonso el Sabio's text also printed Gómez de Santisteban, so there is no possibility of influence within the same printing establishment, as there is in the case of the Siete Sabios. Fénix: Revista de la Biblioteca Nacional del Perú. N.10, 1954