Note 691 — Chapter XXI

The “Doze Triumfos de los Doze Apóstolos was printed entire in London, 1843, 4to, by Don Miguel del Riego, Canon of Oviedo, and brother of the Spanish patriot and martyr of the same name. In the volume containing the Triumfos, the Canon has given large extracts from the “Retablo de la Vida de Christo,” omitting Cantos VII., VIII., IX., and X. For notices of Juan de Padilla, see Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 751, and Tom. II. p. 332; Mendez, Typog. Esp., p. 193; and Sarmiento, Memorias, Sect. 844-847. From the last, it appears that he rose to important ecclesiastical authority under the crown, as well as in his own order. The Doze Triumfos was first printed in 1512, the Retablo in 1505. There is a contemporary Spanish book, with a title something resembling that of the Retablo de la Vida de Christo del Cartuxano;—I mean the “Vita Christi Cartuxano,” which is a translation of the “Vita Christi” of Ludolphus of Saxony, a Carthusian monk who died about 1370, made into Castilian by Ambrosio Montesino, and first published at Seville, in 1502. It is, in fact, a Life of Christ, compiled out of the Evangelists, with ample commentaries and reflections from the Fathers of the Church,—the whole filling four folio volumes,—and in the version of Montesino it appears in a grave, pure Castilian prose. It was translated by him at the command, he says, of Ferdinand and Isabella.