Printing, Patronage and Preferment: The Works of Andrés Laguna and the Dynamics of Humanist Publication in the Sixteenth Century

Abstract

This article examines the career of Andrés Laguna, a Segovian physician, whose published works were conceived more as part of a strategy to improve his social position, than with a view to making a mark in the field of Renaissance Humanism. It is drawn from a wider analysis of the position of the converso in Spain in the sixteenth century which looks at the assimilationist trajectory of the second generation of conversos after the 1492 decree of expulsion, and takes Laguna as representative of those who, rather than choose exile, strove to assimilate with the literate elite of Spanish Christian society. The imperative for Laguna was to lay claim to the most advantageous position he could, and, instead of using his medical skills, as his father had done to make himself useful to the local Bishop, Andrés used the philological tools gleaned from a Humanist education to ingratiate himself with the cultural elite. He did so not just out of a desire for financial reward, but also for social elevation, professional recognition and for the protection which closeness to people in power afforded someone like him, who bore the mancha of a Jewish heritage.