The Speculum Humanae Salvationis (Way
to Human Salvation), written at the beginning of the 14th
century by an author not yet identified, was the guide most
frequently consulted by Christians from most Europe for almost 400
years (it was even called liber laicorum, the lays' book)
to find the way to their spiritual salvation through the teachings
of the Redeemer and the religious philosophers of ancient times,
specially during the long periods of political, religious conflicts
and the devastating epidemics. Even if its scope was much more limited
in the Iberian Peninsula as in Central Europe, it had a very powerful
influence on the spiritualist literature and the sacred iconography
until very recent times. There was no excuse for not disclosing the only
codex of the treaty kept in Spain, in the ms.Vit.25-7 of the National
Library of Madrid, dated of 1432 and illuminated with 264 examples
of the best German miniature of that time, very rare in the
archives of Spain. The edition of this Speculum, limited, numbered and unique, consists of two volumes presented in a box. The first volume, bound in leather, is a faithful facsimile reproduction, at true size (26 x 36 cm) and full colour, in gold, of the first 43 sheets of vellum of the ms. B.N.Vit 25-7. The second volume, bounded in cloth with matching spine in leather and the same size, offers along with the text transcription and its translation into Spanish, a "corpus" of historic-critic studies by Teresa Pérez Higuera and Albert G. Hauf i Valls, not published until today, which bring to light the transcendence of this piece of work in the European crisis of the 14th century. Cf. Speculum Animae, by Sor Isabel de Villena and Libro de Buen Amor. ISBN 84-85197-47-3 |