Reading Diego de San Pedro in Tudor England

Abstract

This article traces the changing cultural spaces within Tudor England in which San Pedro’s Cárcel de amor and Arnalte y Lucenda were transferred and read. The analysis of bibliographical data and paratextual materials sheds light on how and by whom these works were read throughout this period, from the court of Henry VIII to the wider audiences marketed by Claudius Hollyband’s Italian-English edition. The case of Diego de San Pedro serves to illustrate the interplay between transfer, rewriting and reading competence which conditioned the dissemination of texts in the English Renaissance.