Representaciones del espacio interior e intimidad espiritual en los tratados de tres franciscanos recogidos (Francisco de Osuna, Bernabé de Palma y Bernardino de Laredo)

• Main Author: Estelle Garbay-Velázquez
• Format: Article
• Language: Spanish
• Published: Civilisations et Littératures d’Espagne et d’Amérique du Moyen Âge aux Lumières (CLEA) - Paris Sorbonne 2020-10-01
• Series: E-Spania
• Subjects: intimacy; interiority; space; recollection; spirituality; Franciscan
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/e-spania/37066

This article focuses on the spiritual aspect of Franciscan recollection (“recogimiento”) which developed in Andalusia and Castilla over the first half of the sixteenth century. As a specific method of spiritual introspection intending to establish a loving communication with God, the “recogimiento” opens up to the modern man a new path within the territory of intimacy - the mystical contemplation. Such contemplation operates in a double dynamic movement: a horizontal and reflexive journey, deep into the inner world of the soul, and a vertical experience of transcendence in which the soul reaches out to the transformative union of divine love. We shall intend to describe and define such spiritual intimacy, through the examination of the different representations of this inner space (words, images, symbols), basing ourselves on the works of three famous Franciscan teachers of the “recogimiento”, composed in Castilian language: The Spiritual Alphabet by Francisco de Osuna (the Third Spiritual Alphabet, 1527, and the Law of Love, 1530), the Via Spiritus by Bernabé de Palma (1532) and The Ascent of Mount Sion by Bernardino de Laredo (1535).