Last Friday, April 25, the critical edition of the following book was presented at the conference room conference room of the Casa de Cultura in Cascante The Conversion of La Madalena by the Cascante writer Fray Pedro Malón de Echaide. This edition, prepared by Ignacio Arellano and Carlos Mata Induráin, of the group of research Siglo de Oro(GRISO) of the University of Navarra and Jordi Aladro of the University of California, has been published in New York by the high school of programs of study Auriseculares (IDEA), with the partnership of the City Council of Cascante, the association Cultural Vicus and the University of California-Santa Cruz.

The book's presentation was completed with a lecture by Professor Jordi Aladro entitled "The conversion of the MadalenaMalón de Echaide, a masterpiece of the Golden Age", in the framework of the program "Abril Cultural 2014" of Cascante.

Malón de Echaide is one of our great authors of the 16th century. The simple reading of his work reveals the Augustinian writer, in addition to being a highly original theologian and an exceptional writer, as one of the most brilliant and original spirits of our humanism. Pedro's treatise is not only a paraphrase of the Gospels, as has been thought, but also a rich mosaic that, taking the figure of the Magdalene as a symbol of the penitent, amalgamates the most diverse social, theological, historical and linguistic themes, all perfectly combined by the mentality of an ascetic humanist. The Conversion of the Madalena brings together the most diverse currents that formed our Renaissance. Indeed, Plato, Plotinus and St. Augustine are harmonized in the work of the Navarrese writer together with the Italian Neoplatonists, especially Ficino and Pico della Mirandola.

The ascetic treatise of Malón de Echaide is, without a doubt, one of the masterpieces of golden prose in language Spanish. However, of the various editions more or less within the reach of the present reader, none could be called critical, nor did it have an apparatus of notes of the magnitude that the text requires. A systematic editing task was needed to revise in depth the only authorized edition of La conversión de la Madalena ( that of Barcelona, Hubert Gotard, 1588), which would conform as far as possible to the criteria of Malón himself, who is one of those cases of aurisecular writers concerned with typographical requirements and spelling. In this edition we have tried to carefully revise the author's proposals and to reconcile them, as far as possible, with the criteria of modern philological edition defended by the group of research Siglo de Oro (GRISO) of the University of Navarra.