Spanish

The first complete translation of the Odyssey into a vernacular language was the German version by Simon Schaidenreisser published in 1537. Only a few years later, Gonzalo Pérez, ambassador and secretary, first of Charles V and then of Phillip II, published a translation of the first 13 books in Salamanca in 1550, then a reprint in Antwerp in the same year, and a revised edition in Venice in 1553. Next, Pérez’s complete translation of the poem was published in Antwerp in 1556. It was revised by the author himself in Venice in 1562 and reprinted in 1767, of which our copy is an example. In the Spanish language, the only previous translation of a Homeric text is the so-called Ilíada en Romance, a prose version of books 1–5 and 10 of the Iliad, based on the Latin translation by Pier Candido Decembrio with the addition of the translation of book 9, 222–603, based on Leonardo Bruni’s Orationes Homeri.

La Ulixea de Homero, traducida de Griego en lengua Castellana por el secretario Gonzalo Perez. Volume 1 of 2. Madrid: Francisco Xavier Garcia, 1767.