Abstract

In 1764, Antoni Portella i Enric presented his book titled Nou methode per aprendre la llengua llatina. Primera part dels Rudiments (in English: A new method for learning Latin. Part one of the rudiments) to the Palma Town Hall. The book exemplified Port-Royal dictates and the fashionable educational ideas of the 17th century; it was successfully used in Minorcan schools, but it did not catch on in Majorca. The fact that it was written in Catalan, a language that was commonly used on the smaller island subject to the Treaty of Utrecht, and competed with grammar books created by experts who questioned its adequacy, put it at the center of a debate on the methodology for teaching Latin, as was common across Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, but with the addition of the conflict between the two vernacular languages, Catalan and Spanish. This work deals with the controversy of ideas about the Catalan, Spanish and Latin languages that was lived in the second half of the eighteenth century in Mallorca and Menorca in the field of education; as well as the grammatical works in use.

Abstract

In 1665 the palace of the Duke of Girifalco hosts a selected group of aristocratic people for a rich performance inspired to Calderón’s Con quien vengo vengo, in order to show the magnificence of the house as well as its loyalty to the Spanish king. This event testifies both to the myth of Calderón in Naples in the 17th century and to the performing strategies in private houses. The text was staged using typical resources of Neapolitan theatres, such as prologues, musical insertions, dances between the acts and multiple language scenes, and was entrusted to a troupe formed by talented amateurs and skilled practitioners. Technical solutions and other «messages» constitute a propagandistic «liturgy» aimed at emphasizing the tribute of the Duke (and of his entourage) to the Spanish power. The glamour and the myth of the «catholic» nation is based also upon such events, where different «languages» and bold experiments are combined. At that time Naples is gaining (and bringing to perfection) an artistic role, which will soon turn into an absolute primacy in Europe.