Note 420 — Chapter XIII

Rojas, the author of all but the first act of the Celestina, says, in a prefatory letter to a friend, that the first act was supposed by some to have been the work of Juan de Mena, and by others to have been the work of Rodrigo Cota. The absurdity of the first conjecture was noticed long ago by Nicolas Antonio, and has been admitted ever since, while, on the other hand, what we have of Cota falls in quite well with the conjecture that he wrote it; besides which, Alonso de Villegas, in the verses prefixed to his “Selvagia,” 1554, to be noticed hereafter, says expressly, “Though he was poor and of low estate, (pobre y de baxo lugar,) we know that Cota’s skill (ciencia) enabled him to begin the great Celestina, and that Rojas finished it with an ambrosial air that can never be enough valued”;—a testimony heretofore overlooked, but one which, under the circumstances of the case, seems sufficient to decide the question.

As to the time when the Celestina was written, we must bring it into the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, before which we cannot find sufficient ground for believing such Spanish prose to have been possible. It is curious, however, that, from one and the same passage in the third act of the Celestina, Blanco White (Variedades, London, 1824, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 226) supposes Rojas to have written his part of it before the fall of Granada, and Germond de Lavigne (Celestine, p. 63) supposes him to have written it either afterwards, or at the very time when the last siege was going on. But Blanco White’s inference seems to be the true one, and would place both parts of it before 1490. If to this we add the allusions (Acts 4 and 7) to the autos da fé and their arrangements, we must place it after 1480, when the Inquisition was first established. But this is doubtful.