Sobre la historia antigua y el lagarto de La Magdalena en la obra anónima historia de la ciudad de Jaén, ca. 1615

Resumen

In this paper, we analyze the subjects and sources of the Ancient History of Jaén that appear in modern historiography, specially in the manuscript Historia de la ciudad de Jaén written by an anonymous autor ca. 1615. In this work, it is shown that in the sexteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth, Spanish cities began to seek the prestige that ancien origin gives, drawing on the discoveries of Roman antiquities, but also in the remarkable manifestations of the Christian history of Jaén. On the ohter hand, in this manuscript appears the first known (unpublished) version of the legend of “Lagarto de Jaén”, that, according to the autor, has a Roman origin. This first version already mixes the literary, topographical and heraldic dragons of the tradition of Jaén.