Published by
Books
Descent of the
author of Lazarillo
de Tormes.
The author of Lazarillo de Tormes was a scion of one of the noblest families of Spain, and some account of it should precede a notice of the author’s life.1
Don Diego Lopez, Lord of Mendoza, in 1170 married Doña Eleanor Hurtado, heiress of Mendibil. She was the daughter of Fernan Perez de Lara called Hurtado, son of Pedro Gonzalez de Lara and of the Queen Urraca of Castille and Leon.
Don Lopez and Eleanor Hurtado had four sons: Inigo, Lord of Mendoza; Diego, Lord of Mendibil; Pedro Diaz, who was ancestor of the Mendozas of Seville; and Fernando, who founded the line in Portugal.
Inigo Lopez de Mendoza married Maria de Haro, and was father of Maria, the wife of her first cousin, Juan de Mendoza, son of her uncle Diego. Their son, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, in the time of Fernando II., married Maria Gonzalez de Aguero, and had a son Gonzalo.
This Gonzalo Hurtado de Mendoza married Juana Fernandez de Orozco, and was the father of a very distinguished son—of Pedro Gonzalez.
A Mendoza saved
the life of King
Juan I. of Castille.Pedro Gonzalez Hurtado de Mendoza married Aldonza, daughter of Fernan Perez de Ayala. He was with Juan I., of Castille, at the battle of Aljubarrota. In the flight the King’s horse was killed. Mendoza dismounted and said to the King:—
El cavallo vos han muerto,2
Subid Rey en mi cavallo.
The King rode away. Mendoza was overtaken and slain. The date of the battle was August 14, 1385. His father survived him, dying in 1405.
The son of this chivalrous knight and successor to his grandfather was Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, married first to Maria, daughter of Enrique II., King of Castille, and secondly to Eleanor de la Vega. His son, Inigo Lopez, was by his second wife.
The Poet Marquis
of Santillana.Inigo Lopez Hurtado de Mendoza was born in 1396. He served with distinction at the battle of Olmedo, and was created Marquis of Santillana in 1445. He was opposed to Alvaro de Luna, the famous Minister of Juan II.
Born in the Asturias, the Marquis was a poet. Among his writings was a little Serranilla.
Moza tan fermosa
No vi en la frontera
Como una vaquera
De la Finojosa.
En un verde prado
De rosas y flores
Guardando ganado
Con otros pastores,
La vi tan fermosa
Que apenas creyera
Que fuese vaquera
De la Finojosa.
Translation
The sweetest girl without compare
In all my days I’ve ever seen
Was that young maid, so lithe and fair,
On Finojosa’s frontier green.
In pleasant shade of beech and pine
A verdant meadow did appear;
And here she watched the browsing kine
With other girls, but none like her.
By nature deck’d and well arrayed
She looked like some bright Summer Queen;
And not a common village maid
Of Finojosa’s frontier green.
But the chief poetical work of the Marquis of Santillana was the Comedieta de Ponza, founded on the story of a great sea-fight, near the island of Ponza, in 1435, between the Aragon fleet and the Genoese. At the request of King Juan II. he also made a collection of proverbs for his son Enrique IV. This was the earliest collection of proverbs made in modern times.
Children of the
Marquis of
Santillana.The noble poet married Catalina Suarez de Figueroa, daughter of Don Lorenzo Suarez de Figueroa, Lord of Feria and Zafra. The Marquis died in 1454, leaving ten children:—
1. Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, first Duke of Infantado.
2. Don Pedro Laso de Mendoza, married to Ines Carillo, Lady of Mondejar. They had two daughters:—
1. Maria, married to the second Count of Tendilla.
2. Catalina, married to Luis de la Cerda, Duke of Medina Celi.
3. Don Inigo Lopez de Mendoza, first Count of Tendilla, of whom we treat.
4. Don Lorenzo de Mendoza, first Count of Coruña.
5. Don Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza, Archbishop of Toledo and Cardinal.
6. Don Juan de Mendoza, Lord of Colmenar.
7. Don Pedro de Mendoza, Lord of Sazedon.
8. Doña Mencia, wife of Don Pedro de Velasco, Count of Haro, Constable of Spain.
9. Doña Maria, married to Don Ajan de Ribero.
10. Doña Eleanor, wife of Gaston de la Cerda, second Count of Medina Celi, representative of the eldest son of Alfonso X. and therefore rightful King of Spain; the reigning family descending from the second son, the usurper Sancho.
Don Inigo Lopez de Mendoza was created first Count of Tendilla in 1465. He was Captain-General of Andalusia. The Counts of
Tendilla. He married Doña Elvira de Quiñones, daughter of Don Diego Fernandez, Lord of Luna. Their children were:—
1. Don Inigo Lopez de Mendoza, second Count of Tendilla.
2. Don Diego de Mendoza, Archbishop of Seville.
3. Don Pedro de Mendoza, married to Juana Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca.
4. Doña Catalina, wife of Don Diego de Sandoval, Marquis of Denia.
5. Doña Mencia, wife of Don Pedro Carillo, Lord of Toralva.
Don Inigo Lopez de Mendoza, second Count of Tendilla and first Marquis of Mondejar, Grandee of Spain and Viceroy of Granada. He married his first cousin, Doña Maria Laso de Mendoza, but had no children by her. He married, secondly, Doña Francisca Pacheco, daughter of the Duke of Escalona, by whom he had eight children:—
1. Don Luis de Mendoza, third Count of Tendilla, Viceroy of Navarre, President of the Council of the Indies, second Marquis of Mondejar, Captain-General of Granada.
2. Don Bernardo de Mendoza, slain at St. Quentin, 1557.
3. Don Antonio de Mendoza, Viceroy of Peru, 1550.
4. Don Francisco de Mendoza, Bishop of Jaen.
5. Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, of whom we treat.
6. Don Bernardino de Mendoza, General of the galleys.
7. Doña Maria de Mendoza, wife of the Count of Monteagudo.
8. Doña Maria Pacheco, married to Don Juan de Padilla.
Veinte y tres generaciones
La prosapia de Mendoza
No hay linage en toda España
De quien conozca
Tan notable antiguedad.
Lope de Vega.
Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza was the fifth son of the Marquis of Mondejar and Count of Tendilla, first Spanish Governor of Granada, by Francisca Pacheco, daughter of the Duke of Escalona.
The Governor had a palace in the Alhambra near the Torre de Picos, which is now demolished. But the smaller house of his esquire, Antasio de Bracamonte, still stands in a garden, built against the exquisite little mosque on the walls. There are three shields of arms carved on the walls of Bracamonte’s house.
The palace and the esquire’s house, both within the walls of the Alhambra, looked across the valley of the Darro to the Albaicín. Both buildings were surrounded by gardens and fruit-trees. Birth of Don
Diego in the
Alhambra. In this romantic spot Diego was born in the year 1503, and he passed his early years with his brothers and sisters there. Pedro Martir de Angleria was his tutor. At an early age he went to the university of Salamanca, where he learnt Latin, Greek, and Arabic, and studied canon and civil law.
Don Diego at
Salamanca.While he was a student at Salamanca Don Diego wrote Lazarillo de Tormes.
On leaving the university Don Diego went to serve with the Spanish armies in Italy. His services
in Italy. He also attended lectures at Rome, Bologna, and Padua, and was a profound scholar as well as a statesman and a soldier. Charles V. appreciated his ability and his acquirements. In 1538, at the age of thirty-five, he was appointed Ambassador at Venice. He assisted and patronised the Aldi, and Josephus was first printed complete from his library. Afterwards he was for some time Military Governor of Sienna; and he was sent to the Council of Trent to maintain the imperial interests there. His next employment was at Rome, as special Plenipotentiary to rebuke and overawe Pope Julius III., which he did.
Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza returned to Spain in 1554 at the age of fifty. The library. He was not appreciated by Philip II. and seldom came to Court, living, with his splendid library, in his house at Granada.
In his retirement he wrote a good deal of poetry. But his great work was the Guerra de Granada, a narrative of the rebellion of the Moors in 1568-1570. The Guerra
de Granada. He did the Moors such impartial justice that his book could not be published until many years after his death. Sallust was his model. The first edition appeared in 1610, and the second more complete edition at Valencia in 1776. It is one of the finest pieces of prose-writing in the Spanish language.
In his last years Don Diego found much pleasant employment in his library. Last days. He corresponded with Zurita, the historian of Aragon, telling him how the work of looking over his books reminded him of many long-forgotten things, and supplied him with much food for thought. While in Italy he had been diligent in obtaining Greek MSS., and in other respects his library was quite unique. He bequeathed it to Philip II., and it is now in the Escurial.
Death of Don
Diego Hurtado
de Mendoza.Don Diego died at Madrid in April 1575, aged 72.
Ticknor3 describes Lazarillo de Tormes as “a work of genius unlike anything that had preceded it. Ticknor’s opinion
of the work. Its object is to give a pungent satire on all classes of society. It is written in a very bold, rich, and idiomatic Castilian style. Some of its sketches are among the most fresh and spirited that can be found in the whole range of prose works of fiction. Those of the friar and the seller of Indulgences were put under the ban of the Church.” They were expurgated by the Inquisition in 1573, when an expurgated edition was published at Madrid, and in the Index Expurgatorius of 1667.
The first edition in Spain was published at Burgos in 1554.4 It is excessively rare. First edition. There is a copy at Chatsworth, but none in the British Museum. The Duke of Devonshire allowed the late Mr. H. Butlerp. xxviii] Clarke to transcribe his copy of the first edition. This was done with great care, exactly as it was printed. In 1897 Mr. Butler Clarke printed 250 copies at Oxford, with a facsimile of the old title-page.
Many other editions followed the first of 1554.5 In Mr. Grenville’s library there is an Antwerp edition (12mo) of 1555, Value of copies. for which he paid seven guineas. Colonel Stanley’s copy fetched £31:10s.; Mr. Hanroth’s, £20:10s. The Paris editor of 1827 could only find a 1595 edition.
A second part, by some wretched scribbler, soon appeared, without any merit. It makes Lazarillo go to sea in the Algiers expedition of 1541. The ship founders, he sinks to the bottom, crawls into a cave, and is turned into a tunny fish. Spurious
second parts. He is then caught in a seine, returns by an effort of will to the human form, and finally goes to live at Salamanca. There was another second part by Juan de Luna, a teacher of Spanish at Paris. It continues the story by making Lazaro serve several other masters, and then become a religious recluse. Both second parts are miserable rubbish, and ought never to be reprinted.
Yet they are included in recent Spanish editions, which is much to be deplored. For the work itself is a classic. In at least two instances the Dictionary of the Spanish Academy refers to Lazarillo de Tormes as an authority for the meaning of words.
English Translations