Abstract: The article examines the works of folklore scientists who laid the foundations of Spanish paremiology. The subject of the study are collections of proverbs, sayings and other small genre forms published in Spain in the XVI century. The focus of attention is the famous apophthegmata of Melchor de Santa Cruz "Floresta española de apotegmas o sentencias, sabia y graciosamente dichas, de algunos españoles" (1574), which collected about a thousand texts and covers all aspects of the life of Spanish society. Along with other famous folklore collections of the XVI century by such authors as Juan de Timoneda, Juan de Mal Lara, Pedro Mejía, the work of Melchor de Santa Cruz influenced the formation of a scientific approach in Spanish folklore studies. The article provides a comparative analysis of collections of folklore texts of this period and emphasizes their influence on the development of Spanish folklore studies of subsequent centuries. The XVI century caused in Spain the rise of national consciousness, which is accompanied by an increase in scientific interest in the Spanish language, its lexical richness and grammatical system. Following the discovery of the New World, Spain is experiencing not only the rapid development of the science of folklore, but also the flowering of linguistic thought, based on the small genres of folklore in the issue of exemplification. The combination of short form and capacious content makes this group of genres attractive to linguists, folklorists, and Spanish writers of the Golden Age.