Las abreviaturas en cuatro ediciones tempranas de la Celestina : Toledo 1500, Burgos 1499-1502 (?), Zaragoza 1507 y Valencia 1514. Catalogación, cuantificación y consecuencias editoriales

Abstract

This article intends to be a contribution to the study of the textual transmission of Celestina in the context of the materiality of early printed books. On the one side the use of abbreviations is examined in both analytical and quantitative ways, to show that beyond a valuable resource for typesetters in order to adjust lines and pages, abbreviations allowed a considerable saving of paper and therefore a diminishing of the edition costs. On the other side the consistency or inconsistency in the use of personal names abbreviations in all four editions reflects a progressive interest in procuring the resources for an easy reading and amending previous deficiencies. Last but not least the numerous irregularities that are present in the Toledo edition lead us to the hypothesis that this edition took as a departing point a manuscript which could even include corrections and expurgations, and therefore it is very difficult that the Toledo edition could have been collated with the Burgos one.