An Intertextual Argument between Two Translators in Pedro de Toledo’s Translation of the Guide of the Perplexed

Abstract

More than 200 years after the translation of the Guide into Hebrew, the Spaniard Pedro de Toledo first translated this work into a modern language. The importance of this translation (Mostrador e ensenador de los turbados) lies not only on this fact, relevant in itself, but also on the whole set of circumstances linked to the manuscript in which Pedro de Toledo’s work has been preserved. Currently, this codex, the Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, ms. 10289, is the only text that we have of this Spanish translation. This manuscript in which the translation stands side by side with hundreds of comments in marginal annotations clearly shows the social crisis in Hispanic Judaism and the Spanish cultural atmosphere at the time. Our aim in this article is to illustrate these issues by analyzing some of the most meaningful passages in Pedro de Toledo’s translation and notes, as well as the numerous glosses by an anonymous scholar that re­read Pedro de Toledo’s work decades later.