Sobre l’"Spill de la vida religiosa" i la impremta [On the "Spill de la vida religiosa" and the printing press]

The "Spill de la vida religiosa" is an anonymous spiritual treatise written at the beginning of the 16th century. Its transmission has been mainly linked to the printing press. In the critical debate concerning the authorship of the work, and particularly concerning the shortened version that was published, several arguments have been put forward which fail to fully acknowledge the common procedures of the editorial processes during the 16th century. This article reviews the relationship between this text and the printing press and documents the traditions in the transmission of other works during the same period by analyzing the Catalan and earlier European editions (in this case, the Italian ones). This analysis excludes the possibility that the 'editio princeps' of the "Spill" was not a Franciscan editorial project; it also sheds light on the spiritual contexts that allowed a wirde distribution in Italy and shows that these contexts are linked to the company of the Love of God and the Theatine order.