Rodrigo Sánchez de Arévalo: Tratado sobre la división del reino y cuándo es lícita la primogenitura includes an introductory study by Solórzano, an annotated translation of the Tratado in Spanish by Miralles, and a transliteration of the Latin text by Solórzano. The study is an excellent introduction to the context of the Tratado and the intellectual and political life of its author, Sánchez de Arévalo. It includes a brief yet reasonably thorough review of the literature on Arévalo and his works, an informative biography of the author, a discussion of the diverse nature of his work within the intellectual paradigms of his time, an outline of the complex political climate of Castile under John II and Henry IV, as well as the tensions between Conciliarists and the papacy in the fifteenth century, and a clear presentation of the Tratado itself, its organization, content, and sources. The translation of the work into Spanish includes annotations by the translator primarily offering clarifications and corrections on sources and authorities cited by Arévalo. The transliteration of the work in Latin follows manuscript 4881 of the Vatican Library. The editor’s division of the work into numbered paragraphs and the translation’s reflection of the same make consulting the texts together easy.

This study, translation, and edition of the Tratado and its author effectively accomplishes its goal of introducing a generally understudied but eminent and highly representative figure of fifteenth-century Castile, and, more importantly, it offers a translation and the first modern edition of one of the epoch’s most representative political treatises. The well-organized study is concise yet informative, and it provides adequate context and background for initiating medieval generalists into the turbulent political and intellectual world of Castile in the late Middle Ages. While the study serves principally as an introduction, specialists may find Solórzano’s observations on the originality and transcendental nature of the work of interest. The translation is clear, fluent, and faithful to the original language. The translator’s annotations are both helpful and judicious, thus not distracting the reader from the primary text. In addition to the tremendous benefit of offering an edition in the original language, the transliteration distinguishes between the body of the text and its marginalia and interlinear comments, necessary for any serious analysis of the work.

Though the study is a good introduction to this work, its author might have more clearly articulated some of the issues he perceptively raises, though the nature of such a study is somewhat prohibitive in this respect. For example, Solórzano highlights the hesitation between scholasticism and humanism in the intellectual life of John II’s and Henry IV’s courts. The scholar suggests throughout the study that Arévalo tended in many ways toward humanism. However, his repeated observation in this respect is largely based on anecdotal evidence, i.e., citing Arévalo’s humanist contemporaries’ praise of the erudite scholar, and his constant contact with humanists. Given the nature of Arévalo’s Tratado, which follows the scholastic rather than humanist tradition in its attitude towards authorities, manipulation of texts, and dialectical arguments, Solórzano might have justified his emphasis on Arévalo’s prehumanism more clearly via specific examples from his works. Also, a weakness in the translation is that it incorporates marginalia from the manuscript as though it were part of the main text, and many scholars will want to consult the transliteration in this respect. Lastly, the book’s introduction contains a few minor typographical errors, such as “otdo” for todo (24), “erdiendi” for erudiendi (65), and “le” and “las” for la and la (52 and 57, respectively); in the transliteration, the reader will find a stray quotation mark on page 164.

Notwithstanding these rather minor issues, Rodrigo Sánchez de Arévalo: Tratado sobre la division del reino y cuándo es lícita la primogeniture is a very significant contribution. It serves as an introduction to Arévalo, his context, and his work; it makes the Tratado more widely accessible through the translation; and it provides the first modern edition of a representative, and in many ways original, text of the intellectual and political thought of one of fifteenth-century Castile’s most important, yet understudied, thinkers. The book as a whole is intellectually rigorous, and yet quite accessible even for nonspecialists.