A new critical edition of “Os Lusíadas” proves for the first time that there was a counterfeit of the original edition of 1572, clearing up a doubt that dates back to the 17th century, regarding differences between copies with the same date and typeface.
This critical edition of the first edition (princeps) of “Os Lusíadas” is by Portuguese researcher Rita Marnoto and was published by the International Center for Portuguese Studies in Geneva (CIEPG), as part of a broader project that the Swiss center is developing: to make a critical edition of the entire work of Luís de Camões, said the researcher, in an interview with the Lusa news agency.
“There was a critical edition of Camões’ work that began to be published by the Imprensa Nacional Casa da Moeda in 1985, but it was never completed,” he said, adding that this will be the first complete critical edition of Camões’ work ever made and that it is expected to be finished by the end of this year or early next year.
So far, the sonnets, roundels, songs and this edition of “Os Lusíadas” have been published; the octaves and elegies are being paginated; the odes and eclogues are still missing.
This new critical edition of “Os Lusíadas” puts an end to an old debate about the differences found in copies of the first edition, which had the same reference and were allegedly printed in the same place and on the same date.
The frontispiece of these volumes of “Os Lusíadas” reads: “Printed in Lisbon, with license from the Holy Inquisition, and from the ordinary: in the house of António Gonçalvez Impressos. 1572”.
It turns out that there were differences between these copies, firstly in the engraving that adorns the frontispiece, topped by the image of a pelican, whose head is turned to the left in some copies and to the right in others, but also in the text, the spelling and the paper.
This inequality has created a problem that has spanned the centuries and which the researcher from the University of Coimbra and vice-director of CIEPG solves and exposes in the almost one thousand pages that make up the two volumes of the critical edition of “Os Lusíadas”.
“Era uma questão que estava por esclarecer desde o início do século XVII e eu esclareci-a através da análise do grafismo, dos carateres tipográficos utilizados”, disse a investigadora.
For a long time, the idea prevailed that there was a single edition in whose copies corrections had been inserted, and the Camonian scholar and critic Manuel de Faria e Sousa was the first to notice these differences, at the beginning of the 17th century, and to point out the possibility of there being two editions.
However, it wasn’t until the 19th century that the hypothesis of counterfeiting was put on the table, but the debate went on and on without it ever being possible to provide concrete evidence to support this theory.
“This question of the differences between the books of ‘Os Lusíadas’ and the date of 1572 had never been studied in depth from the point of view of materiality: observing the book and checking what the copies look like.”
Rita Marnoto immersed herself in the study of a significant number of copies dating from 1572, and realized that in some copies typographic ligatures had been used – pieces that join two letters, making the work easier for the typographer, saving him the trouble of taking two types out of the box, one by one – but that in others, ligatures had never been used.
Another relevant aspect concerns the chapter headings, the letters that begin the chapters, which are ornate and larger than the rest.
In “Os Lusíadas”, 11 capitularies are used, one at the beginning of the charter and ten at the beginning of each corner, printed with a kind of wooden stamp, explains the researcher, indicating that she has found that in some copies, the capitularies are more worn, which is due to the fact that wood is a fragile material, subject to the pressure of the press.
In addition, it had already been discovered that the paper used in some copies had been manufactured in 1580/81, which also contributed to proving the theory that there was a counterfeit: the edition with the pelican’s head to the left, with paper from before 1572, with the capitals less worn and with the text composed without the use of typographical ligatures is the ‘princeps’ edition of “Os Lusíadas”. The other edition, with the pelican’s head to the right, is an imitation, in other words, a counterfeit.
“Faria e Sousa was right when he said that there had been two editions with the same references. From this objective point of view I distinguished two groups of copies, one manufactured, written and printed in 1572 and another group of copies that were produced after 1572.”
There are currently 50 known copies dating from 1572 scattered around the world, two thirds of which are originals and one third counterfeits.
The original copies of “Os Lusíadas” in Portugal can be found at the University of Coimbra Library (one), the Sarmento Foundation (one) in Guimarães, and the National Library of Portugal (three and one incomplete) in Lisbon.
Among the countries that have copies in their libraries, universities or foundations are Spain, France, Brazil, Germany and the United States.
For now, this work, entitled “Luís de Camões. The Lusiads. Edition critique de la princeps”, is only published in Switzerland, but the author plans to publish it in Portugal, along with all the other critical works by Camões, which she is working on with other CIEPG researchers.
This year marks the 500th anniversary of the birth of Luís de Camões.
