Note 693 — Chapter XXII

The oldest edition, which is without date, seems, from its type and paper, to have come from the press of Centenera at Çamora, in which case it was printed about 1480-1483. It begins thus: “Comença el tratado llamado Vision Deleytable, compuesto por Alfonso de la Torre, bachiller, endereçado al muy noble Don Juan de Beamonte, Prior de San Juan en Navarra.” It is not paged, but fills 71 leaves in folio, double columns, black letter. The little known of the different manuscripts and printed editions of the Vision is to be found in Antonio, Bib. Vetus, ed. Bayer, Tom. II. pp. 328, 329, with the note; Mendez, Typog., pp. 100 and 380, with the Appendix, p. 402; and Castro, Biblioteca Española, Tom. I. pp. 630-635. The Vision was written for the instruction of the Prince of Viana, who is spoken of near the end as if still alive; and since this well-known prince, the son of John, king of Navarre and Aragon, was born in 1421 and died in 1461, we know the limits between which the Vision must have been produced. Indeed, being addressed to Beamonte, the Prince’s tutor, it was probably written about 1430-1440, during the Prince’s nonage. One of the old manuscripts of it says, “It was held in great esteem, and, as such, was carefully kept in the chamber of the said king of Aragon.” There is a life of the author in Rezabal y Ugarte, “Biblioteca de los Autores, que han sido individuos de los seis colegios mayores” (Madrid, 1805, 4to, p. 359). The best passage in the Vision Deleytable is at the end; the address of Truth to Reason. There is a poem of Alfonso de la Torre in MS. 7826, in the National Library, Paris (Ochoa, Manuscritos, Paris, 1844, 4to, p. 479); and the poems of the Bachiller Francisco de la Torre in the Cancionero, 1573, (ff. 124-127,) and elsewhere, so much talked about in connection with Quevedo, have sometimes been thought to be his, though the names differ.