TOMO I.
Page 2

LIFE AND WRITINGS

OF

GONZALO FERNANDEZ DE OVIEDO Y VALDES.

I.

Political state of Castile at the end of the 15th century.—Conquest of Granada.—Discovery of the New World.—Renaissance of letters.—Classical studies.—The Catholic Queen encourages and stimulates historical works.—Large number of chroniclers of her reign.—Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo.—His homeland and quality.—His education.—The Duke of Villahermosa appears at court.—He meets Christopher Columbus in Granada.—He forms the project of writing the history of his expeditions.—His friendship with the sons of that hero.—Predilection of Prince Don Juan toward Oviedo.—Death of the prince.—Oviedo’s pilgrimage through Italy.—His dealings with the most celebrated painters.—His friendship with Pontano, Serafin del Aguila, and Sannazaro.—Visit to Rome.—He enters the service of Don Fadrique of Naples.—He returns to Spain.—His marriage and first widowhood.—The Catholic King chooses him for the service of the Duke of Calabria.—His second marriage.—The Great Captain Gran Capitan intends to take him to Italy as his secretary.—He enlists in the expedition of Pedrarias Dávila.—He is named Inspector Veedor of the gold foundries of the Mainland Tierra-Firme.—He departs for the New World.—Contrast offered to his sight by the culture of Europe and the state of the Indies.

Among the Spanish geniuses who owe their education and fame to the glorious reign of the Catholic Monarchs, Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo undoubtedly deserves a distinguished place. His active and laborious life, his sterling loyalty, and his generous constancy reveal the spirit of that most happy era, in which the Spanish nation seemed to rise from a deep sleep to conquer the most elevated seat among all peoples. Great evils had afflicted Castile during the turbulent reigns of Don Juan II and Enrique IV, when it pleased Providence to seat on the throne of the Alfonsos a woman, gifted with a magnanimous heart and clear talent, to whom was reserved the noble enterprise of healing such deep wounds. Isabel girded the crown of her ancestors in 1474, and five years later, Fernando, her husband, inherited the scepter of Aragon, thus forming a single people from those two powerful kingdoms, until then rivals.

The administration, upon her advent, lay in a frightening chaos: justice was a vain name, and neither the treasury recognized any system other than the ancient and reprobated disorder of the Jewish tax collectors almojarifes, deliverers, and collectors, nor did the Council of Kings exercise its legitimate influence on public affairs, nor did the royal majesty finally manage to be respected everywhere, to the grave dishonor and detriment of the crown. The peoples cried out to escape such an agonizing...