ABSTRACT
According to Ruiz Casanova the first literary translation into Spanish was Calila e Dimna, a collection of tales whose translation from Arabic was commissioned by the Infante Alfonso, who later would become King Alfonso X of Castille, a patron of translation on a large scale. The invention of the printing press, which arrived in Spain circa 1470, signalled a new period in the history of literary translation in the Iberian kingdoms. The sixteenth century is prolific in the printing of literary translations, mostly from Italian: authors such as Ariosto, Boccaccio, Dante, Petrarch, Sannazaro and Tasso, among others, were translated before the end of the century. The history of literary translation in Spain has always been a very active research field. The theory and practice of literary translation in Spain and Latin America as it has been addressed by theorists and translators in specific works and paratexts.
