La Lozana Andaluza

Retrato de la Lozana Andaluza, published anonymously in Venice around 1530 by the Spanish priest and editor Francisco Delicado, is a unique masterpiece of Renaissance literature. Long marginalized for its explicit content and unconventional form, it has been reclaimed as a precursor to the picaresque novel and a vibrant, if chaotic, portrait of Rome before the Sack of 1527.

The novel follows the life of Aldonza (later Lozana), a beautiful and sharp-witted Andalusian woman who, after a series of travels and misfortunes, arrives in Rome. There, marked by syphilis but undeterred, she survives and thrives as a courtesan, procuress, and healer in the city's teeming underworld. The narrative unfolds through a series of "mamotretos" (chapters) composed almost entirely of lively, spontaneous dialogue that captures the polyphonic reality of a multicultural Rome filled with Spaniards, Jews, and Italians.

Delicado's work is a “portrait” in a double sense: a representation of a character and a “reprehension” of a corrupt society. The text is rich in linguistic ambiguity, sexual double entendres, and a “grotesque realism” (in Bakhtin's sense) that celebrates the body and the lower social strata. A groundbreaking feature is the inclusion of the “Auctor” (Author) as a character who interacts with Lozana, spying on her to write his book, a metafictional device that anticipates *Don Quijote*.

This Stockcero edition, edited by Tatiana Bubnova, offers a text that respects the original's phonetic characteristics while modernizing punctuation and capitalization for readability. Extensive notes help the contemporary reader navigate the work's difficult, non-canonical language, its wealth of proverbs, and its complex historical and cultural references, revealing a text that is not just a “portrait” of a woman, but of an entire era on the brink of catastrophe.