Legant prius et postea despiciant»: Lope, San Jerónimo e Isaías en la portada de la Jerusalén conquistada (1609)

The title page of all 17th-century editions of Lope de Vega’s Jerusalén conquistada (1609) includes a quotation extracted from the preface of Saint Jerome to the Book of Isaiah. A careful analysis of this prologue leads to the conclusion that the quote in question, in its context within the Jerusalén, not only relates directly to Lope’s constant self-representation as a victim of Envy, but it also makes possible a veiled attack on his critics (Góngora), while at the same time serving to articulate a clear apology of the risky poetic project that Lope proposed in hispanizing the epic of Tasso. Finally, through the prologue of Saint Jerome, Lope establishes a tacit equivalence between the prophecy of Isaiah and his own text, in which prophecies are also pronounced, this time regarding the messianic destiny of Philip III as future conqueror of the Holy Land.