Old letter found in a numismatic book

Hello everyone,

not directly coin related but I was organizing my coins and books today when I restumbled upon a letter that I found in a coin book from the 1800,s a few years ago.

it seems to be in Spanish? But I have a hard time reading it, can anyone decipher what it is about?

the numismatic book seems unrelated I believe because it was in a book on coins from Hessen.

here some images I took of the letter today.

thank you,

Paul

Maybe the letter relates to a hidden treasure full of gold coins 🤭

Fascinating. Yes — Spanish… at least a form of Spanish of about 400 years ago…

I wondered what Ldo at the start of the signature was and got the answer by chance when I googled the name don Pedro de Zamora Hurtado, and it means “Licenciado”.

I can't read much but I see several times words linked to wills / testaments:

• testam(en)to
• testador
• difunto

With a little training, this should be easy enough to read entirely.

For stuff like this there are some sub-reddit with people that surprisingly often can read very unintelligible things.

Hi, 

Fascinating and interesting 17th century document. Not so much for the content, but for the calligraphy and Spanish spelling of the time!

As Camerinus already discovered, the document was signed by Licenciado (lawyer) Pedro de Zamora Hurtado in april 1641.

The document deals with a will related to two brothers (?) Fernando and Juan Gonzalez (old spelling: Goncalez), who were apparently unable to receive the deceased's assets because they were excommunicated. From what I could decipher, they were given 10 days to prove otherwise. Pedro de Zamora ordered that the priest of the parish where the Gonzalez brothers were from be summoned for questioning.

All this took place in Antequera, a town in the province of Málaga. At that time,  Pedro de Zamora Hurtado  practiced law  in a canonry in the city Málaga. 

It seems to me that the leaves photographed by Paul are not complete. In any case, if I can decipher something more, I'll add it to this thread.

Regards

Wow, thanks for sharing and the posts thereafter for giving more insight! 

It's quite interesting for getting a glimpse at the religious mentality of the time. Without looking into details, I saw online that the same Zamora Hurtado had been involved in other cases where issues of morality were involved.

I was wondering what the “diez dias” were for but couldn't really understand. But then this morning I realized that the date at the top is “17 abril 1641” and that at the bottom of the last page it says “hasta de 28 abril” = “until April 28th. In both cases there's an extra dot in “abril” either over the ”i" or over the “l”. No idea why.

I suspect this is an authorized copy of the official document. There are no stamps or seal imprints, but the signatures seem to be real.

Thanks everyone, that gives some valuable info and helps me understand much better what this letter is.

Hi everyone, 

I managed to almost completely decipher apuking's text. The use of (old) abbreviations and the handwriting (two different scripts) made this entertaining task somewhat difficult (inserts in blue are mine). I reiterate that the photos show an incomplete document, so there are passages that are not clear.

A deceased priest: Alvaro Solano

Two relatives who were executors: Fernando Gonzalez Parejo and Juan Parejo

A representative or defense attorney: Blas de Soto

A notary or judge: Pedro de Zamora Hurtado ... and an unnamed prosecutor.

..... all of this could serve as plot for a nice tragicomedy of misunderstandings...😅

Have fun.

Christian

Great job, christianvl — 

I'll have a good look at it as soon as possible. I've already put the letter and your transcription side by side in PowerPoint slides. 

Periodically, I do a lot of document transcription for research purposes. It's always a plus when one can get used to new writing styles and conventions, even from a very different place, language, and period.

Hopefully apuking will show us the missing lines…

really really amazing yes thank you.

actually that is all I have or all there is.

Images 1 and 2 the letter is just folded in half and I took a picture of the half page only.

Picture 3 and 4 are the second reverse page but there is a larger space between these two.

Hi apuking, 

“Images 1 and 2 the letter is just folded in half and I took a picture of the half page only.”

I think it's precisely this fold that prevents us from seeing one (or two) lines of the document. Could you send an image of that part of the unfolded document?

Hi Camerinvs,

Thank you for your kind words. I, too, will continue reading and rereading the document until I find/complete the missing words.

I already noticed some small errors in my first transcription 😒!

Regards

Ok no problem, then I will try to take pictures again, hope I can do so tonight.

christianvl

Hi everyone, 

 

I managed to almost completely decipher apuking's text. The use of (old) abbreviations and the handwriting (two different scripts) made this entertaining task somewhat difficult (inserts in blue are mine). I reiterate that the photos show an incomplete document, so there are passages that are not clear.

 

A deceased priest: Alvaro Solano

Two relatives who were executors: Fernando Gonzalez Parejo and Juan Parejo

A representative or defense attorney: Blas de Soto

A notary or judge: Pedro de Zamora Hurtado ... and an unnamed prosecutor.

 

 

..... all of this could serve as plot for a nice tragicomedy of misunderstandings...😅

 

 

Have fun.

 

Christian

 

  

Yes indeed it could!   The great Alexander Dumas wrote novels starting from less evidence than this! 🧐