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This article offers a comprehensive analysis of a collection of eight Castilian non-Ovidian “Heroides” composed during the fifteenth century, in an attempt to precise the manuscript transmission of each epistle. It should be noted that this textual group has received scarce attention by previous scholarship, partly due to the fact that some of these letters have only come to light recently. As explained in this contribution, this short but relevant epistolary tradition was fostered by Juan Rodríguez del Padrón, above all with his Bursario. Designed as an open and rhetorically complex work, these “Heroides” were disseminated in cancioneros, even if they cannot be disentangled from the historiographic production in what regards their inspiration. In fact, they also relate to all medieval matières, i.e. Troyan matter (as in Ovid’s Heroides), together with Roman and Arthurian ones. In the last section, we present a paleographical transcription and study the sources of one of them, Soffonisba a Massinisa, questioning its possible authorship.
