The piece of the month of October 2016

BETWEEN THE RENAISSANCE AND THE BAROQUE: BOUQUET OF OUR LADY OF CODÉS

Javier Itúrbide Díaz
PhD in History

The book, the author and the printer
As the year 1608 draws to a close, the book Ramillete de Nuestra Señora de Codés (The Bouquet of Our Lady of Codés) is published in Pamplona. It is a quarto volume of 192 pages totalling 384 pages in which woodcut illustrations have been inserted, some of which were commissioned expressly for this occasion. The title page is printed in two inks, which is an exceptional luxury, since only eight percent of Navarrese books from the 17th century offer this typographic display, and shows an interest in offering a carefully presented volume.

The pages, according to the author's purpose , form a "bouquet" of flowers offered to the Virgin of the sanctuary of Codés in Navarre, although it soon becomes clear that the themes are dispersed and drift into historical themes and poetic exercises.

The volume is divided into four "books" with a similar issue of pages. The first in turn is subdivided into nine chapters (see "bibliography" in the digital edition, folios 1-42). Here, by way of a preamble, there is an exalted and topical - at the time - hymn to Spain, which is described as a "knife against heretics", before turning to Navarre and proclaiming it to be "a kingdom in its own right, and the kingdom which first received the holy Catholic faith in Spain" (f. 3v). This is followed by a lengthy and rambling account of the origin of the devotion to the Virgin of Codés, from the time of the Visigoths, through the Muslim invasion, to the moment of its consolidation in the mid-16th century, largely due to the hermit Juan de Codés, about whom extensive information is given. The last chapter (f. 34v), over 17 pages, lists the "many images of Our Lady that have appeared in our most Christian Spain" and classifies them according to the place where they were found: buried, in "dark caves", "on stones", on "high and rugged crags", springs, thorns and trees such as oaks, pines, pears, holm oaks, beeches, etcetera.

The second "book" (f. 43-97) is subdivided into ten "gardens" and focuses on inventorying the relics housed in the bishopric of Calahorra-La Calzada, to which the sanctuary of Codés belongs, and, with this purpose, describes in detail those kept in the monasteries and churches.

The third "book" (f. 97-137), which is subdivided into five "discourses", describes at length, among other things, the saints who were born or lived in the diocese and gives the list of its bishops from the year 465 up to the time when the author concludes his task; But sometimes the thread is lost in digressions, such as the list of the noble houses rooted in the bishopric, and he dwells at length on the history of Viana, the author's homeland, which he claims was Christianised by St. Paul.

Finally, the "fourth book" (f. 137-181), divided into four "selvas", relates 57 miracles of the Virgin of Codés, 26 of them versified in romances, in which the storyline is similar: the name of the beneficiary, his place of origin, the ailment from which he has been miraculously cured and the alms or votive offering he has left in the sanctuary are given. These quatrains (f. 167) give an account of their diversity:

Cover the walls and
covered and upholstered
of crutches, arms, legs,
heads, hands, throats,
chests, eyes, feet, noses,
bodies, bones and shrouds,
triumphs of your victories
worthy of praise.

The last pages detail "the manner of blessing the cloths of Our Lady of Codés" by the priest of the sanctuary and reproduce the prayers to be said (f. 164v).

The author of the Ramillete, as Juan Cruz Labeaga has brought to light, is the first-born son of the Biscayan stonemason Juan de Amiax, who came to Viana to work on the lavish Renaissance façade that was built in the parish church of Santa María over two decades (1549-1570). Here he married Isabel Aguilar and had three children: the first-born son, born in 1564, who was named after his father, the author of the Ramillete; four years later he was followed by a girl, and finally Pedro, born in 1570, who chose to serve the King as an ensign in Flanders.

When he published his Ramillete de Nuestra Señora de Codés, Amiax was 44 years old and one of the 37 beneficiaries of the two parishes of Viana. This ecclesiastical official document provided him with a generous annual income of 220 ducats, which undoubtedly enabled him to live comfortably and devote himself to his literary interests. Before settling permanently in his native city, where he remained until his death at the age of 78, he had been a chaplain in the navy, which explains the naval terminology which he sometimes uses in his poems, although forcing the similes, as can be seen in this verse to Mary (f. 136v):

Royal Captain I tell you
well I say that I am not deceived
for the General of Heaven
was embarked in your stern.

Mariela Insúa and Carlos Mata have published a study of the 184-line romance (f. 177v-181) in which a ship, an allegory of the Church, departs from Barcelona, skirts the cape of San Vicente to finally visit the "divine and sacred abode / that shines in the mountains / and crags of Torralba". From here he will return to Italy to visit Mary's house in Loreto.

The author, through his Ramillete, shows himself to be a devout man, preferably interested in prodigious manifestations, and when in 1605 visit to his bishop, Pedro Manso, he informs him that he intends to "compile the miracles of Our Lady of Codés and, together with them, the holy bodies and relics of the Bishopric of Calahorra-La Calzada" (f. 92v).

This piety harmonises with his poetic whims, which are reflected in the numerous romances, sonnets, octaves and quatrains that fill the book praising the Virgin Mary and proclaiming her miracles. As was customary at the time, he has invited his poet friends to participate in the first pages, who remind him of his origin - "Si Vizcaya y Navarra te engendraron" - and flatter him by calling him "Homero de la Virgen pía" (Homer of the Pious Virgin) or "Amiax divino" (Divine Amiax). Although, as is inevitable for any self-respecting litterateur, he must also have some detractors, to whom "a friend" refers, who in an octave considers that the author has achieved his purpose of "writing divine praises of the Virgin of Codés [...] without biting tongues having been the occasion to put you into long oblivion". Amiax himself addresses a "scathing Zoilo, careful to muddy well-spent works" of whom the facts "proclaim his wickedness and his vices".

As well as being pious and a poet, he is also a scholar, who, in addition to the Bible, quotation classical authors, such as Pliny, together with those who are obligatory reading for the purpose of his research, such as Esteban Garibay, and he is aware of new publications: such is the case of the life of Saint Domingo de la Calzada, by Fray Luis de Vega, which has just been published in Burgos, specifically in 1606. The bishop of Calahorra-La Calzada provided him with letters addressed to the heads of his twenty archpriests with the instruction that they should help him in his research when he visited the temples and sanctuaries. His eagerness researcher, on the other hand, led him to consult archives, with special attention to that of Codés; to transcribe inscriptions and documents, although he sometimes came across some "written documents which, because they were so old, could not be read despite the many diligences that had been carried out"; and to question those who had lived through and known about important events. The desire to refine his data led him to establish epistolary contacts with important people, such as Fray Ignacio de Ibero, Abbot of Fitero, who in 1600 had been commissioned to write the "chronicle of the Kingdom", who provided him with information about the "relics" of the Prince of Viana and his ability to cure those "sick with scrofula" (f. 121). He also has relations with the Benedictine Prudencio de Sandoval, chronicler of the King, from whom he asks financial aid to identify some relics from the monastery of Azuelo (f. 77) and to whom, on another occasion, he sends a detailed report, published by Félix Segura, on three Roman stelae from Los Arcos.

Although the Ramillete is his only printed work, Gancedo states that he wrote the "Antigüedades de la iglesia de Calahorra, a work which I am not aware of having been printed but of which it seems that P. Flórez in his España Sagrada and other illustrious researchers were able to take considerable advantage".

As well as being a poet and scholar, he was devoted to the Virgin of Codés, whose sanctuary is 26 kilometres from Viana. He himself had enjoyed her favours because, as he recounts, he suffered from "a cirrhosis [tumour] that I had on my leg, [which] it was never possible to cure, nor to soften the hardness it had". After a year of unsuccessful medical treatment, he put on the "cloth" of the Virgin of Codés and, on the second day, "the swelling opened up in seven places for which I had a great purgation of apostemas for eight months", after which it was cured (f. 135v). But he had previously had the opportunity to contemplate the favours of the Virgin of Codés in his own family: his brother Pedro, "when he was a boy of seven eight years old", another boy "put a knife through his throat"; from this mishap he was only half recovered as "his colour was always pale and sickly" until his parents put the cloths of Codés on him and "he was perfectly cured" (f. 332). And when he was writing his Ramillete, in 1603, he witnessed a new prodigy, this time in a fellow beneficiary, who had suffered a serious injury to his hand since he was a child, which had been crushed by a mill wheel. This member of the clergy, as his bruised hand worsened over the years, he put on the "blessed linen cloths [which] opened up his flesh and removed a small bone" and the pain ceased. These three events, which the author had known personally, help to understand his unbridled credulity in miracles in general and, in particular, in those brought about by the Virgin of Codés.

The author, due to his proximity, should have contracted the printing of his book in Logroño and not in Pamplona, as he finally did. But the capital of La Rioja around 1608 did not have an established workshop, since Diego de Mares' printing press was subordinate to that of his father, Matías, who was based in Pamplona and who at that time was working intensively in the monastery of Irache on the printing of the first two volumes of the monumental Crónica general de la Orden de San Benito by Fray Antonio de Yepes. On the other hand, the workshop of Juan de Mongastón would still take a few years to enter into operation in the capital of La Rioja, plenary session of the Executive Council . For these reasons, Juan de Amiax had to have his book printed in Pamplona and did so in the workshop of Carlos Labayen, which had only been open for a year. He had no alternative since, as we have seen, Matías Mares, who had been living in the capital of Navarre since 1596, was working temporarily in the monastery of Irache.

The printer Carlos Labayen, after training and setting up his own business at the age of 26 in Zaragoza, moved his business to the capital of Navarre in 1607. His arrival was at the behest of the city council which, aware that he was a "very skilled and skilful" printer, considered it necessary to expand and improve the typographic offer in the Navarrese capital, which until then had been in the hands of a single workshop, that of Matías de Mares, a veteran printer who died two years after the arrival of his competitor. Be that as it may, from 1607 onwards the capital of Navarre had two workshops. The most active was that of Carlos Labayen, who arrived at the age of 29 and who, over the course of a quarter of a century (1607-1632), would bring out a total of two books a year, which represents twenty percent of the book production of the Navarrese printing presses in the 17th century, at average .

The new Pamplona printer was not short of commissions and, in the second year of his long professional life in the Navarrese capital, he printed six titles, the highest rate of his degree program, and among these was the commission for Amiax.

On this occasion Labayen has produced a neat typographic work , with good quality, clear and varied lettering. At the head of the chapters he uses woodcut borders of subject vegetal with texts that decrease from versal to italic, and with five-line capitals at the beginning of the text. The printing stain leaves adequate margins, framed by two fillets in which the apostilles are inserted in italics. The text is rounded off with a classic caption that ends with a vignette.

The printing has been done on quality paper and Labayen has followed it carefully, as can be seen from the erratum, which warns that it is possible that some of the errors noted may not appear in certain copies as they were "corrected later", i.e. during the printing of the sheet affected by the typographical error.

The typographic features mentioned above situate Carlos Labayen's work in the trajectory, in the process of extinction, of Renaissance printing, in which, by the way, around 1520, Miguel de Eguía from Estella, in Alcalá de Henares, had played a stellar role.

The sanctuary and its fame
The sanctuary of the Virgin of Codés, around which the Ramillete revolves, belongs to the municipality of Torralba del Río and is located on the border with Álava, at the foot of the "high and rugged crags of Yoar", according to the author. Historically, it belonged to the bishopric of Calahorra-La Calzada until 1956, when it was transferred to the bishopric of Pamplona. For this reason, the author places work within the scope of the diocese to which it belonged and, consequently, the historical news and pious accounts cover La Rioja, Álava, Vizcaya, part of Guipúzcoa and some archpriesthoods of Burgos, Soria and Navarre, which here corresponds to that of Viana, in whose jurisdiction the sanctuary of Codés is located. For this reason, the book is dedicated to an illustrious parishioner of the diocese and regent of the committee Real de Navarra, Juan de San Vicente, born in Miranda de Ebro, whose coat of arms appears on the cover.

Amiax, from agreement with the historiography of the time, places the origins of the temple in the realm of the legendary. He mentions Leovigild's incursion into the lands of La Rioja in 575, which culminated in the destruction of the city of Cantabria, whose inhabitants fled with the image of the Virgin and who, to avoid its destruction, hid it "in the mountains of Torralba" - the image is actually a Romanesque-style carving dating from the 14th century. Centuries later, it was discovered by a shepherd in a Shrine of Our Lady of Fair Love surrounded by hawthorns, where it began to be venerated by the faithful of the surrounding area. However, devotion to the Virgin of Codés would take a long time to achieve notoriety, and it would be due to an event that constituted its first miracle: the liberation, dated 1523, of a man, held captive by the feared bandit Juan Lobo in his lair in the Monicastro mountain range, in La Berrueza, who was miraculously transported, together with the trap that immobilised him, to the Shrine of Our Lady of Fair Love of the Virgin of Codés to whom he had entrusted himself. Given the repercussions of this miracle, the inhabitants of Torralba del Río decided to appoint a hermit to attend to the cult, which was now beginning to spread, and for this purpose they appointed a certain Juan Merino, who became known as Juan de Codés. His example of sanctity for 53 years, until his death in 1583, and, above all, his dissemination of the "blessed cloths" that cured "sores and other wounds" boosted the notoriety of the sanctuary. The cloths were distributed beyond the limits of the bishopric and their prodigious healing value was to the detriment of the surgeons, who "lost most of their ordinary earnings", prompting them to denounce the hermit to the bishop and the inquisitors, who allowed him to continue "with the blessing of the cloths" (f. 21v).

Thanks to the edifying testimony of Juan de Codés, the incessant influx of devotees and the donations collected by the hermits three times a year from the villages of the diocese - in 1674 a record 28 tonnes of wheat were recorded - in the second half of the 16th century the modest Shrine of Our Lady of Fair Love was transformed into a church with three naves. But it was in the following century that "the golden century of the sanctuary" took place, as Valeriano Ordóñez describes it. Now the alms multiplied to such an extent that in 1620 a new chest was built, which was opened with three keys kept by the church steward, the parish priest and the mayor of Codés. The abundance of donations made it possible, in the first half of the 17th century, to enlarge the church, erect a new altar with three oil paintings bought in Madrid, install a wrought iron grille in the presbytery, build a spacious hostelry, start the bell tower, and improve the surroundings with a spacious staircase and a source.

It was precisely during this vigorous period of expansion of the sanctuary that the Ramillete de Nuestra Señora de Codés was published, which helped to spread its fame and the miracles that multiplied there. In this way the printing press would increase the renown it already enjoyed.

But Juan de Amiax's book was not the only one related to the Virgin of Codés. In 1639 in Logroño, printed in the workshop of Pedro de Mon Gastón Fox, Capilla y fiestas de Codés was published in Logroño. It is an octavo volume of 92 pages by Pedro de Llanos Valdés. It praises Diego Jacinto de Barrón Jiménez, perpetual alderman of Logroño, devotee of the Virgin of Codés, who, according to the "speech Segundo", when he was young had been cured of "a lethal morbidity" because of which "he was judged to be a skeleton" (See in "bibliography" the digital edition, page 14). Barrón had paid for the new "chapel" of the sanctuary of Codés and for this reason, on 10 September of the aforementioned year of 1639, a solemn ceremony was held to inaugurate the "construction of the chapel and the festivities for the placing of the Virgin", which was attended by "more than eight thousand people". In this festivity, Barrón, as benefactor, played a leading role as he marched in the procession, "gallant, honest and spirited, waving the banner", flanked by his "garbose children", Don Francisco and Don Rodrigo, who held the tassels, as detailed by Pedro de Llanos in a romance of circumstances (p. 37).

In the "first speech" the origin of the sanctuary is recounted in royal octaves, probably based on the book that Amiax had published 31 years earlier. It is therefore reasonable to think that the Ramillete was still the work of reference letter for the propagation of devotion to the Virgin of Codés.

The sequel to the Ramillete
When Juan de Amiax published his work he made it clear on several occasions that he intended to publish a second edition purpose , although this did not happen. This can be seen on folio 59, where he planned to insert an engraving with the registration of "sixty somewhat overgrown Gothic letters" which he had transcribed from the ark of the relics of Saint Prudentius kept in the monastery of Nájera:

On other occasions he asks for the readers' partnership for fill in his research on the relics of the 11,000 virgins of which he has counted 53 in the diocese, as well as on the images of the Virgin Mary miraculously discovered (f. 93v): "If in some other parts of this bishopric there are more heads of the eleven thousand virgins or images of Our Lady that have appeared, I will receive a great mercy from the people who send me a report of all this in order to put them in the second printing".

El Ramillete was the main reference letter throughout the 17th and 18th centuries for the propagation of the devotion to the Virgin of Codés. The eventful 19th century was also present in Codés, which suffered looting, fires and destruction, first during the War of Independence and then during the two Carlist wars. The consequence of all this was the decline of its religious activity.

At the dawn of the 20th century, a period of recovery began early on, in 1901, when the "Cofradía administradora de la basílica de Nuestra Señora de Codés" was set up with the aim of promoting worship and rebuilding the sanctuary, mission statement . Well, within the activities of recovery of the pious activity is the publication, in 1905, five years after the constitution of the confraternity, of the History of Our Lady of Codés, written by D. Juan de Amiax, prebendary of Viana and arranged for the new edition by the Rvd. Fr. Eusebio de la Asunción. Consequently, it can be seen that at the beginning of the 20th century Amiax's work is still necessary, at least this is how the three clerics of the confraternity who have paid for the printing of expense understand it, as Valeriano Ordóñez points out. The discalced Carmelite Eusebio de la Asunción resides in the convent of Corella, which explains why the new edition is printed in that town in the workshop of Manuel Gil, who has prepared a little book of 135 pages, measuring 15 centimetres.

Eusebio de la Asunción based his compilation on the copy of the Ramillete that he had borrowed from the Carmelite nuns of Logroño, whose whereabouts are not known at present. But the change in the forms of piety required him to tone down the tone of the miraculous stories, as he acknowledges in the prologue: "The passage of time has made many variations convenient and even necessary, both in the style and also in the substance of the work", and to this end he suppresses miracles "not entirely proven". He also eliminates the abundant, lengthy and not very rigorous texts on the diocese of Calahorra-La Calzada which have no direct relation to the shrine, and instead includes at the beginning of the book a chapter entitled "On the antiquity of the cult of the Virgin in Spain". All this leads Fr. Eusebio de la Asunción to conclude that "the old Ramillete has been changed in such a way that it can be called a new book". Be that as it may, Amiax's book, three hundred years after its publication, is still the starting point for re-establishing, at the beginning of the 20th century, devotion to the Virgin of Codés, even if it is necessary to adapt it to the new times.

Three decades later the Ramillete survives as the source for the diffusion of the cult to the Virgin of Codés. In 1933 in Logroño, in the printing house of Gumersindo Cerezo, a booklet of 18 centimeters and 80 pages graduate Historia del Santuario de Codés. I. Ramillete de Ntra. Sra. de Codés, composed by Juan de Amiax. Fernando Bujanda, priest of Torralba del Río and, therefore, devotee of the Virgin of Codés, has prepared the edition. At that time he was President of seminar of the capital of La Rioja, which explains the numerous publications he published on the priestly vocation during those years. As the Carmelite Eusebio de la Asunción had done in 1906, Bujanda also warns that from the book of Amiax the things that do not directly concern Codés have been "broken down from the book reference letter ". And the fact is that the Ramillete at this point in the 20th century is as essential in some pages as it is anachronistic in others. Six years after this first submission, in 1939, at the end of the Civil War, he published La Historia del Santuario de Codés II, which he subtitled Sencillos apuntes sobre Codés . It is reduced to a 38-page pamphlet.

Finally, the 21st century will see a new edition of the Ramillete. It will be a facsimile publication, without a preliminary study, published in Pamplona in 2005 by publishing house Sancho el Fuerte with a print run of 500 copies. Now, the work of Juan de Amiax is disseminated not so much for the devotees' Building but for the delight of bibliophiles.

In this way, the Ramillete de Nuestra Señora de Codés, a quarto volume of almost four hundred pages, published in 1608, has been the most effective means for promote this sanctuary in Navarre for four hundred years, with the necessary adaptations.

Recapitulation: between the Renaissance form and the Baroque background
Formally, Juan de Amiax's book, through its typography and illustrations, sample is linked to the printing that had shone in the Spanish Renaissance, and from which the printer Carlos Labayen had imbibed during his apprenticeship in Saragossa. But now, at the beginning of the 17th century, it is beginning to be replaced by the Baroque aesthetic.

This is true in terms of form, but in terms of content, due to its contrived internal structure, it is a fully baroque work. As has already been mentioned, it is divided into four books and these respectively into chapters, gardens, discourses and jungles, without these denominations being justified by their content. On the other hand, it is an eloquent testimony to the popular religious literature of the 17th century driven by the Counter-Reformation. It is offered as an antidote to "profane and profane books", because of which the faithful "lose their way to heaven", and among them he singles out those of "fabulous chivalry". Cervantes also lashed out against these, albeit in a different vein, in Don Quixote, which, curiously enough, was born now, in the same year as the Ramillete.

In the pages of the Ramillete, history and legend mingle, contrived poetry coexists with rambling prose, and an elementary piety, based on miracles as frequent as they are gratuitous, which ignores the teachings of the Gospel and any theological foundation, exerts its hegemony. This spirit would find its way into a multitude of pious books that would see the light of day in Spanish printing presses throughout the century.

bibliography AND ELECTRONIC RESOURCES
GANCEDO, E., Recuerdos de Viana o apuntes históricos, Madrid, Gráficas Halar, 1933.
INSÚA CERECEDA, M. and MATA INDURAIN, C., "La alegoría de la nave de la Iglesia en un romance mariano de Juan de Amiax", Príncipe de Viana, nº 232, 2004, pp. 639-667.
ITÚRBIDE DÍAZ, J., Los libros de un Reino. Historia de la edición en Navarra (1490-1841), Pamplona, Government of Navarre, 2015, CD-ROM.
association DE AMIGOS DE VIANA, Juan de Amiax, el primero que escribió sobre Viana, Viana, 2014.
ORDÓÑEZ, V., Santuario de Codés, Pamplona, Diputación Foral, 1979, (Navarra. Temas de Cultura Popular, 343).
SEGURA URRA, F., "El report de Juan de Amiax (1605)", Cuadernos de Etnografía y Etnología de Navarra, nº 89, 2015, pp. 87-93.

The Brotherhood of Nuestra Señora la Virgen de Codés maintains a websiteportal with information about the sanctuary and its activities.

The digital edition of Ramillete de Nuestra Señora de Codés, (Pamplona, 1608), can be found at download from the Library Services Navarra Digital (BINADI). It corresponds to the copy donated by Eugenio Asensio (1902-1996), literary critic and humanist, a native of Murieta.

The digital edition of Capilla y fiestas de Codés, (Logroño, 1639), is available in Google Books. It reproduces the copy of the Austrian National Library Services (Vienna).