Alfonso X, El Sabio, Estoria De Alexandre El Grand, General Estoria (quarta Parte)/the Life of Alexander the Great as Narrated by King Alfonso X, the Wise, of Castile, in the General Estoria Manuscript U, Vatican Urb. Lat. 539

This semi-paleographic edition of the life of Alexander the Great, as recounted by King Alfonso X, starts with the folio sequence 206 recto and ends with folio 239 verso. The transcription proper is very conservative, faithful to the Alfonsine original. This edition is useful to students and scholars of Old Spanish, as it faithfully reproduces the language employed at the time of composition, including scribal abbreviations, expansions, deletions and insertions. When appropriate, editorial insertions are used as a means to supply material missing or obliterated in the original text. The orthography of the scribe(s) has been respected, including work separation and conjunction, except when personal scribal patterns interfere with the general orthography of the lexical items in question. These are the cases in which the orthography represents an attempt on the part of the scribe(s) to reflect the pronunciation of the words selected. This semi-paleographic transcription contributes to the study of the Old Spanish language as it captures, unaltered, different stages of evolution present in the scribal orthography. Scholars of Hispanic and Romance philology, those concerned with the transmission of Islamic and ancient Greek/Hellenic knowledge in the Middle Ages will find this work helpful, as it portrays the role of Alfonso X and his royal scriptorum in the dissemination of Islamic Legacy to the West.