At least, as she was being cast off, she kicked and screamed enough so that, centuries later, we can now make sense of her unrelenting rebellion.
ALTHOUGH THE PLOT OF THIS NOVEL IS FICTITIOUS, JUANA’S HISTORY is not. The facts have been reconstructed based on existing historical data, taken from original sources and from the ample bibliography provided by scholars to whom I am very much in debt.
The information I found in one or another account often showed discrepancies in the dates and the names of places. I chose the dates and places that seemed best supported by documents from the time. I also took a few liberties by simplifying the retelling of events whose details were unnecessary to the story’s aims. For reasons of literary convenience, I also decided to locate Francisco Pradilla’s painting, Juana la Loca at Her Husband’s Coffin, in the Prado Museum, when in fact it is at the Casón del Buen Retiro.
ADDITIONAL SOURCES
Following are additional texts that are held at the Simancas Archive, which may be of interest to the reader. One is the speech Juana gave the Comuneros on September 24, 1520, the only long speech the queen is on record as ever having given, at her first hearing with the Comuneros’ Council during their rebellion against Charles I of Spain and V of Germany, when they attempted to put her on the throne and end the imprisonment she had been enduring since 1509.
The other is an excerpt from Catalina Redonda, Juana’s washerwoman, in her account of the hiding place and contents of the trunk (that Lucía and Manuel find in the novel) whose disappearance–in line with the plot–I attribute to the Denias.
Santa Monica, January 2005
JUANA’S SPEECH TO THE COMUNEROS
After God saw fit to take my lady–the Catholic Queen–to Heaven, I always heeded and obeyed my lord, the King, my father, husband of the Queen; and with him I was without care, because I knew that no one would dare undertake evil deeds. And after I found out that God had taken him, I was very sorry indeed and wished not to have learned the news, and wished he were still alive, and that wherever he was, he lived, because his life was more important than mine. But since I had to learn this news, I wish I had learned of it earlier, that I might have remedied everything that I.*
I have a great love for all people and any harm or injustice they might suffer weighs heavily upon me. And for so long I have been surrounded by evil men and women who have told me lies and falsehoods and dealt me only trickery when I would have wished to take part in all that affected me, but since the King, my lord, chose to put me here, perhaps because of she who came to take the place of the Queen, my lady, or perhaps due to other considerations of which His Highness is aware, I have been unable to do so. And when I learned of the foreigners who had arrived and were in Castile, I was greatly aggrieved, and thought that they had come to see to certain matters for my children, but it was not so. And I am full of admiration that you have not taken revenge against those who have wronged you, as anyone would, because all things good please me and all things nefarious weigh upon me. If I did not act, it was to ensure my children not be harmed, neither here nor there, and I cannot believe that they have departed, though I am told with all certainty that they have departed. You must watch out for them, although I believe none would undertake any evil, given that I am a lady and second or third proprietary (queen), and thus did not deserve to be treated as I have been, for I am daughter of a King and Queen. And I rejoice to hear of your attempts to remedy wrongs that have been committed, for if you did not, it would weigh upon your conscience. Thus I entrust you to act upon it. As for me, I will endeavor to act, wherever I am able. And if I cannot, it shall only be because I must one day soothe my heart and overcome the death of the King, my lord; though as long as I am able, I will endeavor to do so. And so that not everyone pays call at once, I ask those of you who are here now to name among yourselves four who know the most about these matters to come and meet with me, to tell me everything, and I will listen, and I will address you, and I will hear out your case, whenever necessary, and I will do all that I can.
EXCERPT FROM CATALINA REDONDO’S ACCOUNT OF JUANA’S TRUNK
What is known is that in a room in Her Highness’s quarters was a trunk like that described in the declaration, in an Anzeo case, and Her Highness ordered this witness to bring out said trunk when she wished to open it because Her Highness had the key, and in this witness’s opinion said trunk was quite heavy, and as Her Highness required that I turn my back when she opened it, this witness could never see what it contained, but could only see that it was filled to the brim with bundles tied with white cloth, and this witness knows not what said bundles contained and saw only one stone which seemed to this witness to be a diamond set in gold, as big as a thumbnail, with a handle enameled in gold to hold it by, and the last time Her Highness asked (sic) this witness to bring out the trunk was around the day of San Miguel in September of 1554, eight days before or after (…) and that when the inventory of said declaration was taken, and eight days before Her Highness passed away this witness could not find said trunk and said so to those who were undertaking the inventory (…) and this witness knows that no one went into the place where said trunk was kept without Her Highness’s permission nor could anyone enter without Her Highness seeing….
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Historical research for a novel like this owes a lot to others’ work. I would like to express my gratitude for certain books that were absolutely essential in my reconstruction of the period and of Juana’s life: Bethany Aram’s extraordinary book, La reina Juana (Marcial Pons, Ediciones de Historia, S. A., 2001); Miguel Ángel Zalama’s exhaustive, intellectual study, Vida cotidiana y arte en el palacio de la reina Juana I en Tordesillas (Universidad de Valladolid, 2003); Michael Pradwin’s Juana la Loca (Editorial Juventud, 1953); Manuel Fernández Álvarez’s Juana la Loca, la cautiva de Tordesillas (Espasa, 2000); and José Luis Olaizola’s Juana la Loca (Editorial Planeta, 2002). I would also like to mention, of the many other books I consulted, Nancy Rubin’s Isabella of Castile (St. Martin’s Press, 1991), William Manchester’s A World Lit Only by Fire (Little, Brown & Co., 1992), José Antonio Vallejo-Nájera’s Locos egregios; Julia Kristeva’s Black Sun, Depression and Melancholia (Columbia University Press, 1989); Michel Foucault’s Madness and Civilization (Vintage Books, 1988); John Adamson’s (ed.) The Princely Courts of Europe 1500–1750 (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999); and Thomas Kren and Scott McKencrick’s Illuminating the Renaissance (Getty Publications, 2003).
I would also like to sing the praises of the Internet, that fabulous source of data we now have at our disposal and which was invaluable to me for any number of diverse consultations. I want to thank Professor Teófilo Ruiz at UCLA for personal conversations as well as his The Teaching Company lectures on the Catholic Monarchs of Spain; thanks also to Doctor Charles Hoge, Doctor Toni Bernay, and Doctor Iván Arango, for their contributions on Juana’s illness.
I want to express very special thanks to my sister Lucía, who lent me not only her name for the protagonist of the novel, but also helped compile books and information from Madrid, where she lives. I thank her and my niece Teresa for their company on visits to different places where Juana lived in Spain, especially Tordesillas. I thank my sister Lavinia, my daughter Melissa, the tireless and indispensable Sergio Ramírez, Claribel Alegría, Anacristina Rossi, and my editors, Elena Ramírez, in Spain, and Rene Alegría at Rayo, HarperCollins, for their time, their advice, and their encouragement. To Bonnie Nadell and Guillermo Schavelzon, my agents in the United States and Spain, thank you for your support and enthusiasm for my work.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
GIOCONDA BELLI is the award-winning author of The Inhabited Woman as well as her memoir, The Country Under My Skin. The author of several novels published in Spanish, she is also a world-renowned poet. She divides her time between California and Nicaragua.
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ALSO BY Gioconda Belli
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br /> NONFICTION
The Country Under My Skin
El país bajo mi piel
FICTION
El pergamino de la seducción
The Inhabited Woman
La mujer habitada
Waslala
Sofía de los presagios
POETRY
From Eve’s Rib
Sobre la grama
Línea de Fuego
Truenosy arco iris
Amor insurrecto
El ojo de la mujer
Apogeo
De la costilla de eva
CHILDREN’S BOOKS
The Butterfly Workshop
El taller de las mariposas
CREDITS
Jacket design by Laura Klynstra
Jacket photograph © Mikael Dubois/Johner Images
COPYRIGHT
THE SCROLL OF SEDUCTION. Copyright © 2006 by Gioconda Belli. Translation © 2006 by Lisa Dillman. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © SEPTEMBER 2006 ISBN: 9780061850172
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
ISBN-13: 978-0-06-083312-1 ISBN-10: 0-06-083312-2
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*It appears that the scribe failed to make note of the end of the sentence (“that I can”).
The Scroll of Seduction Page 35
