Spanish Humanism on the Verge of the Picaresque: Juan Maldonado’s Ludus Chartarum, Pastor Bonus, and Bacchanalia

Supplementa Humanistica Lovaniensia, Vol. 24The sixteenth-century humanist Juan Maldonado (c. 1485-1554), in his Latin essays, foreshadows the Spanish picaresque. Maldonado’s Pastor Bonus, a lengthy open letter to a bishop, reviews in a vivid and satirical style the abuses of the churchmen in his diocese. His Ludus chartarum is framed as a colloquium on entertaining while teaching a Latin terminology for card playing. His Bacchanalia is a spirited play pitting the forces of Lent against those of Bacchus. These works have been edited and translated into English by Warren S. Smith and Clark Colahan for the first time, with illustrations of scenes from each work, and of sixteenth-century cards, by Richard Simmons and Caleb Smith.