El Libro de los pensamientos variables como ejemplo de utopía y disidencia en el siglo xv

Abstract

This paper provides an analysis of an intriguing work entitled Libro de los pensamientos variables, a mixture of prose and verse written between 1488 and 1492, or perphaps a little later, around 1495. It is contained within a single manuscript, housed in the Biblioteca Nacional de España (MSS/6442). After a brief description of its content and its literary style, Pedro de Gracia Dei is pointed as the possible author hidden behind the anonymity of this book. Furthermore, the paper describes how some literary and artistic ingredients of the plot make this work worthy of being considered a sort of fifteenth-century antecedent of utopian literature. This is especially visible in some little nuances of political dissidence that have been bravely preserved, despite the risks of censorship and royal punishments endured by poets and writers during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs.