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Reimagining Diego de San Pedro's Readers at Work: <i>Cárcel de Amor</i>

2004; Volume: 32; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/cor.2004.0013

1947-4261

Sol Miguel-Prendes,

Medieval Iberian Studies

REIMAGINING DIEGO DE SAN PEDRO'S READERS AT WORK: CÁRCEL DEAMOR Sol Miguel-Prendes Wake Forest University Envisioning Diego de San Pedro's readership has proved a vexed question. The difficulty in objectively reconstructing any sentimental fiction's readership dirough documentary sources leads Carmen Parrilla in a recent article to resort to complementary principles. Under the influence of reader-reception theory, in particular the outlining of the horizon of expectations to hypodiesize a Model Reader who decodes the textual cues proposed by the authorial function, Parrilla presumes a public analogous for that of cancionero poetry. It is fully acquainted wiüi the religio amoris fhat articulates erotic desire in terms of Christian love and stresses die contemplation of the lover's sufferings . The social environment for these sentimental reflections is die royal or nobiliary courts or ofher culturally refined circles ("La ficción sentimental y sus lectores" 22). Determining die audience for cancionero poetry dirough documentary sources, however, presents similar difficulties. A possible solution to this quandary may lie in Ana M. Gómez-Bravo's examination of cancionero poetry as a group practice within the limits ofnoble patronage . She advocates a re-evaluation of premodern audiorship as a social process through an analysis ofthe culture, social groups, historical development and the material conditions of writing. I propose to combine diis notion ofsocial audiorship widi an analysis of the cues provided in the works themselves to reimagine die intended readership for Diego de San Pedro's most celebrated masterpiece , Cárcel de amor, and, more generally, to explain the reading habits ofdie patrons who commissioned sentimental fictions as part of the network of practices diat produced literary texts at die Isabelline La corónica 32.2 (Spring, 2004): 7-44 8 Sol Miguel-PrendesLa corónica 32.2, 2004 court.1 I shall consider the cultural context of Castilian literary and artistic patronage during the age of the Catholic Monarchs, dien analyze Cárcel's rhetoric of reading and social audiorship. Aldiough I am in no position at fhis point to extend my conclusions to the whole sentimental genre, I wish to address the recent controversy and present a fresh perspective on one ofits canonical works from my larger project on die impact of contemplative practices in fifteenth-century literary creation.2 Parrilla is righdy puzzled by die documentary evidence. Aldiough San Pedro himself complained of Cárcel de amor s enormous appeal,3 die meager evidence in private libraries challenges this assumption and disagrees widi the number of editions and translations into odier languages traditionally cited to substantiate Cárcel's success. Cárcel, de amor left no trace in die book inventory of Queen Isabel's library nor in any odier noble library ofher entourage (Parrilla, "La ficción sentimental " 21) although it is well-known diat the work was composed for die Isabelline court in die years immediately before die conquest of Granada. While for most of San Pedro's works, Parrilla postulates a female readership receptive to literary fashions (23), she acknowledges that Cárcel was written at the explicit request of the nobleman Diego Hernandes, alcaide de los donceles (prólogo to Cárcel de amor xliv). Exploring the literary and artistic fashions that appealed to the aristocratic readers of the Isabelline court may explain the cultural and material conditions oí Cárcel's writing. 1 See Margaret J.M. Ezell, Social Authorship and the Advent ofPrint. She states that, "a reader in a manuscript culture, with a fluid text constantly subject to change, is responsible for participating in literary production as well as consumption; it is interesting to note here, too, how often the role ofthe reader ofmanuscript text becomes conflated with the roles ofediting, correcting, or copying the text and extending its circulation ofreaders" <41)\- For the debate on the generic limits of the Sentimental Fiction, see the fourteen articles in the Critical Cluster "The Sentimental Romance" in La coránica 29. 1 (2000): 3-229, and the subsequent Forum with fourteen follow-up responses on the same theme in 3 1 .2 (2003): 237-31 9. An advance ofmv project appeared in La coránica as "Chivalric Identity in Enrique deViWena s Arte cisoria". 1 San Pedro repented from the frivolous writings of his youth in a later poem, "Desprecio de la Fortuna" (ca. 1498), where he regrets that Cárcel de amor "no tuvo en leerse calma". Reimagining Diego de San Pedro's Readets at Work9 The "prayer-book" mentality Jeremy Lawrance coined die term "vernacular humanism" for die translations of the classics diat became so popular in die Iberian Peninsula during the fifteenth century. He claims that the fictional character Curial, a warrior familiar with classical literature, in fact reflects a social reality of noble lay readers ("On Fifteenth-century Spanish Humanism " 64-65). His conclusion diat the aristocracy developed a keen fondness for reading is indisputable, but it is more important to emphasize his observation that their tastes veered toward ancient history and moral philosophy or, as he apdy explains, toward texts diat provided "solace and consolation" ("The Spread of Lay Literacy" 90). Furthermore, diey disliked scholarly marginalia, as Ruy López Dávalos indicates in a letter to die translator of Boethius into Castilian (81). They were "lazy readers", as Enrique de Villena says in his translation of and commentary on the Aeneid, widi little patience for academic subdeties but eager to spend dieir leisure time in texts thatwere "rooted in dieir actual living conditions" (90). An oustanding example of the Castilian gentry's literary tastes is evinced by the book collection that Pedro Rodriguez de Velasco, first Count of Haro, donated in 1455 to die Hospital de la Vera Cruz.4 In this library, chivalric romances and treatises on nobility share shelf space widi Franciscan mystical works, such as die Meditaciones de la Pasión, a mixture that Lawrance terms "sacro-militar" and diat is representative of die period's cultural milieu ("Nueva luz" 1076-77). Odier inventories ofnoble libraries confirm diis perspective. Along with die expected chivalric novels and pious books, Boefhius's Consolation ofPhUosophy occupies an eminent position.5 Furfhermore, when we consider sixteenth-century best-sellers, die picture is not greatiy altered. Whinnom states diat "Golden-Age printing [was] dominated by prose non-fiction, devotional, moralizing and historical works" ("Problem of the best-seller in Spanish Golden-Age Literature" 194) 4 The hospital was an institution devoted to the support oftwelve old hidalgos and the care ofthe sick and poor in the area (Lawrance, "Nueva Luz sobre la biblioteca del conde de Haro" 1074). 5 Isabel Beceiro Pita, "Los libros que pertenecieron a los condes de Benavente, entre 1434 y 1530"; Beceiro Pita and Alfonso Franco Silva, "Cultura nobiliar y bibliotecas: cinco ejemplos, de las postrimerías del siglo XIV a mediados del XVI"; M.A. Ladero Quesada and M. C. Quintanilla Raso, "Bibliotecas de la alta nobleza castellana en el siglo XV". 10Sol Miguel-PrendesLa coránica 32.2, 2004 and Sarah Nalle notes that manuals for private devotions remained immensely popular.6 The material evidence from art history demonstrates the same religious taste. Retablos decorating aristocratic burial chapels proliferated during the age of the Catholic Monarchs (Yarza Luaces 240). These multipaneled altarpieces sat behind and above die altar" and depict scenes from die lives of Christ and the Virgin Mary and symbolic representations, such as die Cross, Mary's Sorrows, or Christ as Man of Sorrows. Analogous images embellish the devotional books owned by the Castilian gentry. The Misal Rico of the Mendoza family and the book known as Libro de Horas de Alonso de Zúñiga, now in die Escoriai, arejust two examples of prayer books, owned by members of the aristocracy, which are decorated in the late-Gothic style ofFlanders. This style was favored in the religious paintings and richly illuminated books commissioned by Queen Isabel (Yarza Luaces 94-95). If die literary and artistic preferences of aristocratic circles are clearly oriented toward religious devotion, a question arises regarding fheir reading practices. C. Harbison has studied Flemish aristocrats who commissioned works of art. He notes diat, like die Castillans, devotional texts and Books of Hours constituted their primary personal and communal reading. Devotional books were read "contemplatively " according to a mediod diat "emphasized the need for a direct, vivid, visual re-enactment ofChrist's life on earth ... [and] encouraged die devout to focus dieir attention so that they might truly be present at certain moments ofChrist's life". Paintings and miniatures illustrate diis modus operandi and often show an inviting, open prayer book in the foreground and a scene from Christ's life in the background ("Visions and Meditations" 87, 95). A portrait ofa wealfhy nobleman now at El Prado evinces die same reading practice in late-medieval Castile. It is part of the Sopetrán altarpiece, dated after 1460. The sitter is supposed to be the powerful Duque del Infantado, kneeling at his prie-dieu, where a small book lies open, but his gaze is directed toward an altarpiece depicting a Crucifixion scene in die banco, or predella, and an image of the Virgin 6 One third ofthe books stocked by the printer Guillermo Remón between 1528 and 1 544 were devotional, precisely the titles identified by Whinnon as the century's best-sellers: Garcia de Cisneros's Exercitatoiio de la vida espiritual, Kempis's Contemplas Mundi, Ludolfof Saxony's Vita Christi, St. Vincent Ferrer's sermons, books explaining the mystery ofthe mass, artes moriendi, lives ofthe Virgin, and books ofhours (Nalle 82, 86). ' Judith Berg Sobré explains that the word retablo comes from the Latin "retro tabulum", meaning behind the (aitai ) table" (3). See also Yarza Luaces 163 andJ.R. Buendia. Reimagining Diego de San Pedro's Readers at Work1 1 and child surrounded by smaller panels impossible to identify (Yarza Luaces 253). The prie-dieu, the prayer book, and the small altarpiece, probably located in his personal chapel or oratory, constitute the apparatus of private devotion designed for use outside the liturgical setting of a church's main altar (Williamson 380). While art historians accept that Renaissance influence in Spain at the end of the fifteenth century was not very strong and that the dominant artistic trend at the court of the Catholic Monarchs was die lateGothic style of Flanders, which was associated with the emotional spirituality of the Modern Devotion (devotio moderna), literary scholars have tried to identify a Renaissance or humanist flavor in works like Cárcel.6 Instead, diey are clearly related to social circles whose way of diinking can be best described as a "prayer-book mentality", a phrase coined by Harbison to describe the mindset of the Flemish patrons and donors who displayed such a strong desire to participate imaginatively in die Passion of Christ that they commissioned panel paintings recording their own visionary experiences (Harbison, "Visions and Meditations"). Whinnom demonstrated diat there is no direct knowledge of the devotio moderna in Spain before 1496 and no documentary evidence for one of its most famous texts, die Vita Christi of Ludolf the Saxon (or, 'the Cardiusian'), in Castile before die 1490s. Yet die contemplation of Christ's life (Contemplatio huma.nitatis Christi), presented as an illuminating and purgative act for the ordinary man, was one of the most distinctive manifestations of the Franciscan reform. It found its way into four, long, versified narratives of the life ofChrist in Castilian that appeared in print in die 1470s and 1480s, loosely based on the Meditaliones vitae Christi by Juan de Caulibus (c. 1346-c. 1364): Comendador Roman's Trovas de la. gloriosa pasión (c. 1485) and his Coplas de la pasión con la resurrección (I486?), Montesino's Coplas sobre diversas devociones y misterios de nuestra, santa fe católica (c. 1485), and Diego de San Pedro's Pasión trovada, composed ca. 1480 and printed some time before 1492.9 The religious lyric poetry of cancionero compilations and some theatrical pieces that Pedro Cátedra labels 8 See the latest formulation in Parrilla: "En lo que tiene de cuestionamiento y especulación de una nueva cultura de los afectos, podría tomarse como un sueño humanista que se asoma a las páginas de aquellas obrillas que hoy bautizamos como sentimentales" ("La novela sentimental en el marco de la instrucción retorica" 1 7). 9 See Whinnon, "The Supposed Sources". For a review ofthe passional tradition and an analysis ofvarious instances ofpassion literature in the Castilian context, see Pedro M. Cátedras exhaustive study Poesía depasión en la Edad Media. 12Sol Miguel-PrendesLa corónica 32.2, 2004 "paralitúrgicas", such as Alonso del Campo's/4wío de la Pasión or some plays by Lucas Fernández and Encina, are just anodier expression of the intense religious atmosphere of spiritual renewal that predates and coincides widi die ascendancy ofdie Queen's Franciscan confessor, FranciscoJiménez de Cisneros.10 The proliferation of portable prayer books used in affective devotion is closely related to die evolution of reading habits in die late medieval period, in particular die advent ofsilent reading (Paul Saenger, "Books of Hours" 142). Furdiermore, die transition from oral to silent reading had profound cultural ramifications. "The new privacy gained through silent reading . . . intensified ordiodox devotional and spiritual experiences . . . [and] played an important role in die spirituality of the reformed mendicants in the Fifteenth century" ("Silent Reading" 40 1).11 The framework ofdie "prayer-book mentality" informs both Cárcel's readership and die work itself as a vision or meditation on die sufferings of its protagonist, the noble Leriano, madly in love widi Princess Laureola. They are articulated in terms of a Passion of Christ12 and, like die Flemish paintings, depict die visionary experience of Diego Hernandes, die nobleman who petitioned San Pedro to write die work for his pleasure and that of"otros cavalleros cortesanos". These courdy readers were not only consumers but active participants in Cárcel's production as social authors. 10FranciscoJiménez de Cisneros (1436-1517) became Isabel's confessor in 1492 and Archbishop ofToledo in 1495. In 1507, he became both Inquisitor General and a cardinal . Under his "tutelage portions ofthe Scriptures and numerous devotional and mystical works were translated into Spanish and distributed to convents and monasteries" (Alison Weber, Teresa ofAvila and the Rhetoric ofFemininity). The time, as Ronald Surtz reminds us, "was especially propitious for all sorts ofextraordinary religious phenomena" (The Guitar ofGod, 2). 11This article is reproduced in Space Between Words. '- Leriano's Christ-like nature and the analogy of his sufferings to a Passion were noticed early on by critics such as Bruce Wardropper, Bruno Damiani, Keith Whinnom's "Cardona", andJoseph F. Chorpenning's "Leriano's Consumption ofLaureolas Letters in the Cárcel de amor", who traces some biblical sources for Cárcel. Because I do not think that it is possible to establish a direct correspondence between Leriano and the figure of Christ as it appears in the Gospels, Chorpenning's analysis is not entirely convincing. More Fitting for this article's purpose is Anna Krause's connection oiCdrcel's expression and mystic writing: "Al hacer de la angustia del incumplimiento —que muero porque no muero— el tema básico de sus obras, Diego de San Pedro anticipa en su retórica galante la terminología que los místicos del siglo próximo habían de emplear al describir su inefable aspiración a la divinidad" (269-70). It is sufficient to note that Leriano's sufferings are articulated in religious terms, as Parrilla ("La ficción sentimental") and Dorothy Sherman Severin ("The Sentimental Genre: Romance, Novel, or Parody?") maintain. Reimagining Diego de San Pedro's Readers at Work13 One of Cárcel's most obvious characteristics is die importance of feelings. Since Menéndez Pelayo assigned die modifier sentimental to these romances in 1905, it has defined the genre. Barbara F. Weissberger argues that the adjective reveals a patriarchal ideology of gender -and genre- that identifies sentimental romance as feminine, private, and interior as opposed to chivalric romance, which is diought of as masculine, public, and exterior. This gendered taxonomic division of late-medieval Iberian romance has determined critical approaches up to die present. Aldiough I fully agree widi Weissberger's sociological analysis of early twentieth-century Spanish scholarship, I would like to open another inquiry into the term sentimental from a medieval horizon of expectations. I am following die patii forged by Keidi Whinnom in 1974, who insisted diat Cárcel's opening allegory must be analyzed widiin die framework of the arts of memory. I propose to extend that context to analyze San Pedro's creative process, die rhetorical inventio, as a meditation or vision, the product of an act of contemplation diat relies on the recollection of previous texts and images.13 Cárcel's reading requires anodier act ofcontemplation, similar to the one illustrated in the Duque del Infantado's portrait: die private , silent reading of a text fhat leads to a visual re-enactment of Christ's torments with the help of a retablo. I am not trying to revive Enrique Moreno-Báez's Panofskian analogy , comparing Cárcel's structure to a Gothic cafhedral,14 but instead to ascertain the modes of communication shared by San Pedro, who was likely trained at the University ofSalamanca, and his courtly readers .15 Pedro Cátedra has demonstrated that the parodie amatory treatises composed within Salamancan academic circles are strongly connected to the court of die Cadiolic Monarchs.16 My analysis supports the parodie nature of sentimental fictions but also stresses their traditional inventive techniques. The private, inner journeys 13In Whinnom's posthumous article, "Cardona, the Crucifixion, and Leriano's Last Drink", edited by Alan D. Deyermond for Studies in the Spanish Sentimental Romance, he states that, "Juan de Cardona's use o{Cárcel de amor, only two generations after San Pedro wrote his romance, lends some support to the hypothesis that early readers may have looked for analogies no further afield than the literature ofthe Passion" (212-13). 14See Moreno Baez's prologue to his edition ofCárcel, 18-35. 15Although there is no documentary evidence, Whinnom presumes from San Pedro's elaborate style that he studied rhetoric in Salamanca ("Diego de San Pedro's Stylistic Reform" 15), and most critics agree on the key role that rhetoric plays in Cárcel. 16See Amory pedagogía en la Edad Media (Estudios de doctrina amorosa ypráctica literaria) and Del Tostado sobre el amor. Also Severin, "Audience and Interpretation" and "The Sentimental Genre: Romance, Novel, or Parody?". 14Sol Miguel-PrendesLa corónica 32.2, 2004 undertaken by sentimental heroes are a product of the prayer-book mentality common to the three intellectual groups that Guillermo Seres identifies as comprising vernacular humanist circles as well as the sentimental genre's readership: "el universitario, el alto clero y el curial culto letrado" ("La llamada ficción sentimental" 13). Similarly, E. Michael Gerii places Siervo libre de amor within the larger medieval penitential tradition by identifying its old French source in Le Rommant des trois pèlerinages and questions analogies to Dante, Boccaccio, and Virgil as "equivocal" ("Old French Source" 18). 17 What all diese auctores -also cited by critics as possible sources for Cárcel- have in common widi vernacular humanists and their reading preferences is the rhetorical craft of contemplation. The rhetorical craft of contemplation Prayerful reading, or contemplation diat stressed memorization as a means ofspiritual progress, was an essential part ofmedieval teaching and learning. It is the rhetorical craft of making thoughts by continuously reading and reflecting on the Scriptures and dien building ideas into superstructures on their foundation, as Mary Carruthers explains in The Craft of Thought.18 Contemplation is also an art for composing "in terms of making a 'way' among 'places' or 'seats'". These "places" were generally stories taken from the Bible or related sources such as hagiography, and "The trope of 'steps' or 'stages' was commonly applied to the affective, emotional 'route' that a meditator was to take in die course of such composition..." (60). Carruthers's study does not go beyond the twelfth century but in her 2002 anthology of mnemotechnical texts, she states: "Later in the 1 ' See also Eukene Lacarra Lanz's interpretation in "Siemo libre de amor «autobiografia espiritual?". 18 See also the Henri de Lubac's classic study Exégèse medievale. For a useful survey, see Roberta D. Cornelius, The Figurative Castle. For its use in sixteenth-century Spain, Joseph F. Chorpenning, "The Literary and Theological Method ofthe Castillo interior" and "The Monastery, Paradise, and the Castle: Literary Images and Spiritual Development in St Teresa ofAvila". George Lakoffand MarkJohnson's linguistic investigations show that the act of 'building' is still a widespread metaphor for thinking in modern English. It equals theories and arguments with buildings; for instance in such expressions as, the 'foundation' ofa theory, 'constructing' a strong argument, the argument 'collapsed', we need to 'buttress ' the theory with solid arguments, etc. (46). Similarly in Spanish, la 'base' de una teoría, basar' un argumento sobre hechos, 'construir' oraciones, 'construcciones' gramaticales, la teoría 'se cae por su peso', las razones para 'apoyar' la teoría. Reimagining Diego de San Pedm's Readers at Work15 Middle Ages memory lost none ofits urgency, but what was considered essential to remember took on somewhat different contours". As a consequence of the reforms brought about by the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), regular canons and the newly founded mendicant orders revived oral rhetoric for homiletic purposes (The Medieval Craft of Memory 21-22). The Victorines' great iconographie schemes, such as Hugh ofSt Victor's Didascalicon, were popularized by the friars so that with them, the art of memory "entered again into its original sphere, for these itinerant preachers used the art for rhetorical purposes. They preached. They also realized a closer connection with the moral dimension , for dieir art of memory concerned die memory of virtues and vices" (Zinn 232). Contemplation and its mnemonic techniques, previously restricted to a religious elite, were made available to the laity. The Franciscans in particular adopted die craft to contemplate visually -diat is, silentlyon the life of Christ. They relished the pictorial qualities of monastic meditation that coincided in many respects with the old memorial system described in the pseudo-Ciceronian Rhetorica ad Herennium, or Rhetorica nova, as it was known.19 Besides recommending the construction of architectural sites, real or imaginary, in which to place the contents to be remembered, both monastic meditation and the Ad Herennium advise that these contents be imagines agentes; diat is, shocking , active images, widi a theatrical quality to trigger recollection. Vernacular humanists practiced contemplation, die craft associated witii literary composition, as a recollectivejourney through other texts or places stored in memory to retrieve subjects and to create original compositions (the two meanings of the word inventio [Latin invenire: to find and to invent]). An early instance is Enrique de Villena's translation of, and commentary on, Virgil's Aeneid. I contend in El espejo y el piélago diat Villena's glosa is, in fact, the romance of a Christian hero, typified by Aeneas. The hero's trips -the motif of diejourney— allow Villena to revisit all his memorial sites and translate them into a Castilian Aneid adapted to the needs of his aristocratic friends and patrons. Contemplation is also the iisus scribendi that Seres identifies in one of the first and defining sentimental fictions, Don Pedro de Portugal's 19 The Victorine canons revitalized its use to help the memorizing ofsermons. See Jean-Philippe Antoine, "Mémoire, lieux et invention spatiale". For its incidence in the Iberian Peninsula, see Faulhaber "Rhetoric in Medieval Catalonia". Enrique de Villena translated theAd Herennium into Castilian around 1428 at the request ofsome noblemen. This translation is now lost. 16Sol Miguel-PrendesLa corónica 32.2, 2004 Sátira de infelice efelice vida (its Castilian version appeared after 1453). Serés cleverly analyzes the work as an andiology ofclassicist commonplaces , drawn from a translation of the author/protagonist's program of study.20 It includes the expected auctores: Virgil, Ovid, Boethius, Dante, Boccaccio, etc., common to university and noble libraries. However, I disagree with Seres that Don Pedro's mythological erudition -or that of any other vernacular humanist for that matter- indicates "modernity", which I take to mean humanistic influence. The use of mythological images isjust another memorial -that is, visual- procedure of"die craft of thought", as Beryl Smalley's always useful study on the English "classicizing" friars demonstrates. It is still important to underscore Serés's suggestion diat the appetite for translations of the classics in fifteenth-century Iberia and die emergence of die sentimental genre are closely connected. The pictorial qualities ofcontemplation also found plastic expression in Iberian retablos.^ Their structure was more or less formalized by 1360. Judith Berg Sobré describes diem: [A] central post ... wider and higher than the odiers ... dominated by a large image, sometimes sculpted but more often painted, depicting the saint to whom the altarpiece was dedicated . Above this effigy was often a painting of Christ on the cross. Flanking these images were additionalposts that pictured scenes from the life ofdie principal saint, sometimes combined with episodes from the childhood and martyrdom ofChrist. ... The banco corresponds in position of die Italian predella. It too was divided symmetrically, the center frequently ... occupied by the eucharistie image of die dead Christ in his tomb, with die balance occupied by images ofsaints, scenes ofChrist's Passion, or occasionally additional narrative episodes dealing with the principal saint. Large retables sometimes also had a sotabanco, or narrow strip below the banco, embellished widi prophets or other figures in small roundels, widi decorative 20 It is interesting to note that the term "tractatus", associated with some ofthe sentimental fictions, is derived from tractare, a medieval Latin word for composing by "acts ofremembering, mnemonic activities which pull in or "draw" (Carruthers, The Craft of Thought 70). -' Testimonies describe actual performances, very theatrical, in which the preacher used the aitai pieces as visuals (Fernando J. Bouza Alvarez, Comunicación, conocimiento y memoria en ?a España de los siglos XVl y XVII). Reimagining Diego de San Pedro's Readers at Work17 gilded quatrefoils, or, particularly in Castile, widi an inscription naming the donors. (6-7) Not all the images in a retablo had the same quality. Sobré identifies two types, symbolic and narrative. The former, generally die saint's central effigy, Christ's crucifixion, and the eucharistie images of the banco, were to be contemplated, while die episodes depicting the life of the saint or Christ were to serve as instruction (Behind the Altar Table 167, 188). Paul Crossley maintains that altars and their altarpieces generated "meditational centres, what might be called sequential patterns of thought, triggers for die ordered exercise ofintellection and memory" (cited in Williamson 371). Retablos possess a narrative dimension as well, in the sense that they require a mnemotechnical perambulation about the different panels, which demands a form of temporal progression .22 The viewing of an altarpiece is a mental walk dirough symbolic images and biblical or hagiographie "places"; diat is, standard stories narrated in images placed, as in Trecento Italian art, in "a series of sites spatially ordered" (Antoine 1458). The practice relies on memories evoked by signs that trigger doctrinal or dieological points or narrative images of ethical or heroic Christian behavior. Contemplation is the craft that builds up these mental constructions. The revival of die contemplative craft at the court of the Cadiolic Monarchs is evidenced by the success of the versified lives of Christ, including the one composed by San Pedro. Their narrative technique is analogous to that of retablos: a memorial journey through biblical sources, or "sites", delayed by moments of emotional contemplation that produce imaginative reconstructions ofhighly symbolic scenes. As Whinnom noted, San Pedro's Passion trovada uses amply the command contempla and its visual equivalents mira and ve ("Supposed Sources" 278-79). Most interesting for my argument, Saenger observes that diese terms were used in aristocratic vernacular texts as synonyms for private silent reading ("Silent Reading"407), which stresses the iconographie role assigned to die reading of diese lives and contradicts die idea that San Pedro's Pasión was initially meant to be performed in "-This position lias been argued byJ.-P. Antoine for Italian pictorial art: "the changeable perspectives ofTrecento painting reflect a mnemotechnical perambulation about the picture-space"