FERNANDO DE HERRERA CONTRA ERRATA

Abstract In 1580, the Sevillian poet Fernando de Herrera published his extensively annotated edition of the works of Garcilaso de la Vega. After printing was completed, two successive errata lists were inserted in the preliminaries. Yet Herrera spotted further mistakes and was forced to resort to manual corrections and paste slips in the copies still available to him. This chapter investigates Herrera’s frustration as editor and corrector and shows that his edition was not an isolated case in the context of early modern printing in Europe. It contributes to the discussion about the role of errata lists and corrections as tools to convey to early modern readers the ideal of textual accuracy, raising broader questions about the transmission and reception of vernacular literary texts edited in the humanistic tradition.