On the origins of the Spanish company. The beginnings of the genre through the work of Fernandez de Oviedo

Imprese or devices were used by kings and knights as a way of flaunting heroic or amatory ideals between the 15th and 16th centuries. Two of Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo's works: Batallas y Quinquagenas and Libro de linajes are indispensable for the study of Spanish words. Both are earlier than the beginning of the genre and they contain examples of this kind of emblematic literature in this inicial phase. As a new-born genre, the Spanish impreses dated in the 15th and 16th centuries present valuable information about their practical uses and about the cultural, political and social universe of their bearers.