Testamentum Raimundi

Click on the image to enlarge it.

At the age of eighty, on 26th April 1313, shortly before embarking on a journey to Sicily, Ramon Llull made a will, which he had drawn up before the notary of Mallorca.

The only copy of this curious document is preserved in the Archive of the Marquis of Santa María de Barberá at the Vilassar de Dalt Castle, in the Maresme region (Barcelona). It is important to note that this is not, as it might appear at first glance, the original will. There is no doubt that the document kept there is a notarial copy of the original document.

In fact, this document is most probably a copy or contemporary partial transcription of the original document to legitimise and demonstrate the donation of manuscripts to the Abbey of Santa María la Real. However, this in no way takes away from the documentary value of the content nor its importance as a biographical Lullian will.

The most significant and curious aspect of this document is undoubtedly to whom Ramon Llull intends to give his savings. He says that, after settling everything he wants to leave to his executors, his children and the Mallorcan institutions, all the money left over should be invested in the conservation copy of the books he recently wrote. Thus, here we are not only witness to ‘an interesting piece of literature’ or ‘a true literary will’, but also a clear and beautiful testimony to the personality of Ramon Llull always ‘in keeping with the spirit of the tireless missionary and prolific writer’, concerned with the dissimulation of his ideas.

Original preserved in the Archive of the Marquis of Santa María de Barberá, with the symbol C1-D6-1 of the AMSMB parchment scroll in the Municipal Archives Museum of Vilassar de Dalt.

Measurements: 345 x 500 mm.

On special aged parchment paper.

Study with translation into Spanish and Catalan.

Print run of 995 copies, numbered and authenticated by notarial act.