Las Coplas del perro de Alba by Juan Agüero de Trasmiera: Anti–Semitism and satire of the House of Alba

Abstract

This research analyses the Coplas del perro de Alba and tries to answer the question of what relationship exists between this dog in the work and the most powerful family in Castile, that of the Dukes of Alba. I have discovered that all the Jews who appear in it were real people who were contemporaries of the first holder of the house in Alba de Tormes, protected by D. García Álvarez de Toledo. Whoever created the work and who later "re–trobó it" –Juan Agüero de Trasmiera, an individual obsessed throughout his life with nobility as a member of a distinguished lineage from the north of the peninsula, clean and without Jewish or Moorish blemish – carry out a satire not only of these individuals, but also of the most powerful lineage –already then suspected of being dirty or marrano– of the time.