1) Vous êtes à la Maison de l’épigraphie pour un mois, pourriez-vous nous présenter votre parcours académique?
I have a degree in Classical Philology from the Complutense University of Madrid, which may seem at first sight to clash with the subject of my short academic career: written documents from the early Middle Ages in Spain, particularly from the Kingdom of Asturias-León. In practice, however, when one considers that all of this written heritage was produced in Latin, it is easy to see that there is not such a big leap between one field of study and another.
I finished my degree in 2016 with a final project in which I began to dive into this world, translating and editing a couple of documents from the 10th century. It was during the master’s degree I took the following year (2017) that I first met epigraphy, specifically with the collection of medieval graffiti in the church of Santiago de Peñalba. Since then, medieval epigraphy has been my main area of research. As a result, in October 2024, I defended my doctoral thesis, whose title is entirely transparent in terms of its subject matter: “Corpus epigraphicum of the asturleonese Kingdom (711-1037). Critical Edition and Study”.
2) Quel est votre projet de recherche actuellement ?
I currently have a research contract with the Department of Classical Philology at the UCM, which allows me to freely develop and expand on the line of research I began with my thesis. Using the corpus I developed as a starting point, I am currently attempting to answer several of the questions it raises. As you can imagine, the range of questions is very broad and touches on several disciplines linked in some way to epigraphy: linguistics, literature, palaeography, history, etc. My main objective now, to summarise briefly, is to determine what aspects of Asturian-Leonese epigraphy are inherited from late antiquity, what aspects are innovative, and how all of this fits into the contemporary early medieval European epigraphic landscape.
3) Comment en êtes-vous venu à l’épigraphie ?
The first time I heard about epigraphy was during my final year of university, in a course dedicated to the transmission of Latin texts. However, my first serious encounter with the subject, as I mentioned earlier, came when I was studying for my Master’s Degree in Classical Philology (2017).
I will always be grateful to Professor Isabel Velázquez for introducing me to epigraphy, teaching me its methodology and, ultimately, giving me the opportunity to work and learn under her tutelage. After completing my master’s degree, I worked as a research assistant at the Archivo Epigráfico de Hispania, where, under the direction of Professor Charo Hernando, I collaborated (and continue to collaborate) both on its regular publication dedicated to classical epigraphy (Hispania Epigraphica) and on the database dedicated to late antique and medieval epigraphy (AEHTAM). It is in the excellent environment of the Archive that I have learned the most, not only about epigraphy, but also about the qualities a researcher needs to do their job well.
4) Qu’attendez-vous de votre séjour à Poitiers ?
I hope to continue advancing in one of the questions I am trying to answer: what is different and what is similar between early medieval epigraphy in north-western Spain and contemporary European epigraphy? Both stem from the same late antique substrate (with obvious geographical differences), so the evolution of each can tell us a lot about everything surrounding the act of epigraphy at very different levels. The library, archive and resources of the Maison de l’épigraphie are a great opportunity for me to access a wide range of knowledge about European epigraphy, as they bring together in one place a large number of works, articles and corpora that would otherwise take a long time to consult. In addition, it has specialists in various subject areas (liturgy, archaeology, history, literature, etc.) who will help to illuminate my path.
5) Quel message voudriez-vous faire passer aux jeunes chercheurs en épigraphie ?
Firstly, it is worth studying and is an extremely rewarding discipline. There may be sources from the medieval world that attract more attention from young researchers (documents or literary works, for example), perhaps because the scarcity of epigraphic texts seems to limit the information they offer. However, an in-depth study of these, as I say, is very satisfying for the researcher: with a little patience, a little becomes a lot.
It also requires a little knowledge of everything in order to reconstruct the puzzle that is each epigraph: there is history, there is literature, there is even stone carving techniques! For those who are curious, who like to ask questions and never stop learning, it can be extremely interesting. It is the crossroads of archaeology, textuality and history, which pushes the researcher to learn more and more about a wide variety of subjects.
On the other hand, there are two aspects that make me very happy. First, I would highlight the ability of epigraphy to open a direct window to the world to which it belongs: not everyone has the opportunity to work with first-hand texts. At the same time, it allows researchers like us, philologists (often confined to a library), to leave the office and do fieldwork. Travelling to different places and “touching stone” is one of the activities I enjoy most about my work.








