Abstract
Since printing a book during the 16th and 17th centuries was extremely expensive and also required the support of a Maecenas, not always easy to find, the manuscript became the favorite vehicle of expression of the Golden Centuries authors such as Lope de Vega and Góngora, who preferred the manuscript texts over the printed ones. Thus, the most appreciated manuscripts were the autographs (written by their own author's hand), followed by the apographs (copies from an original document). The manuscript, since then, held the prestige of the exclusive, of the hand-crafted, up against the mechanically reproduced in presses and directed to the common people. Furthermore, they are very elaborated works, calligraphically valuable, of which we can find both prose and verse samples in all the large libraries in Spain, Portugal, France, Italy and other countries, that gather manuscripts from the Golden Centuries.