Andrés Febrés and the material aspects of the Arte de la Lengua General del Reyno de Chile

Abstract

The Arte de la Lengua General del Reyno de Chile is a cultural object that, like every printed book, constitutes at the same time an intellectual creation and a material product. It is made up of two inseparable dimensions, one internal, which includes the cognitive-intellectual and graphic-linguistic strata and another external dimension, made up of the physical-material stratum that is, ultimately, the product of the intervention of all the agents involved in the publishing business. Precisely, beyond the author, the interventions of editors, printers and booksellers were decisive for the material configuration of the ancient book.

The analysis of the material aspects of the Arte from the direct observation of an original copy reveals particularities in the composition and typographic printing that, together with the consideration of certain passages of the text, allow us to verify that Febrés, beyond the authorship, took care of some problems associated with material aspects of publication that generally depended on decisions made by editors or printers. This is how it provides concrete data and even gives advice to the reader to achieve a better reception of its printed work, taking into account the deficiencies that it presented at a material level related to the layout on the page or the quality of printing, issues that show the conditions of unfavorable production conditions to which the Lima printing presses of the 18th century were subjected.