Main description (English)

This paper deals with Spanish ambassador Diego Hurtado de Mendoza’s collection of Greek manuscripts, which includes almost 300 copies, mostly preserved in El Escorial. Attention is paid to the following questions: 1. extant inventories of this collection; 2. original shelf marks and exlibris; 3. criteria followed to organize Mendoza’s library; 4. binding of its books in El Escorial; 5. manuscripts preserved in other libraries abroad; 6. Italian or Eastern provenance of the codices; 7. models of Mendoza’s manuscripts kept in Venetian libraries (Sant’Antonio di Castello and Marciana); 8. Nikolaos Sophianos’ expedition to the East and sultan Suleiman’s present; 9. Arnoldus Arlenius’ and Antonius Eparcus’ involvement in the making of the recentiores; 10. the old medicine codices in Mendoza’s collection, and 11. nature and use of this Greek collection as a whole. A list of all manuscripts, both preserved and missing, is appended.