DE GONZ. FERN. DE OVIEDO.

In March 1497, the daughter of Emperor Maximilian arrived in Santander, in the same fleet that had taken the Infanta Doña Juana to Flanders, already betrothed to Philip. The Catholic King and the prince went out to receive her with a numerous and brilliant retinue. Don Juan proposed to celebrate her in a gallant and surrendered manner, and he had the discretion to present himself in her view, displaying between daring and reserved the cipher of his name. He entrusted the execution of this project to Gonzalo de Oviedo, who already enjoyed a reputation for being knowledgeable in the arts of design. "And how he was satisfied with the cipher, which was of ancient Latin capital letters, he said: 'Tell me, Oviedo, do you understand what those letters you are drawing say?..' To which Gonzalo responded: 'My Lord, I think they say Margarita.' Then the prince smiled, and said: 'Well look, beware of the devil; do not say it nor show it to any man in the world'" 18. This scene, which on one hand reveals the innocent gallantry of Don Juan, is enough on the other to make known to us the intimate appreciation he had for Gonzalo. The two princes finally met in Reinosa, and they were married in Burgos in the first days of April, with the greatest festivities and rejoicings that had ever been seen in Spain. The most generous ladies and the most powerful magnates competed, as the same Oviedo relates to us, in the pomp and finery of their jewels and attire and in the magnificence and numerous retinue of their houses, as those who sought to make public the pleasure of their hearts for such a desired event 19.

Brief, to the misfortune of the Spanish soil, were such joys and hopes. Prince Don Juan, who barely counted nineteen years, fell ill in Salamanca with such an acute fever that it finished him in thirteen days, expiring on October 4, when the rejoicings had not yet finished in some towns and cities of the kingdoms. Deep sentiment was produced in all by such an ill-fated event, and greater heartbreak was caused among the faithful servants of the prince, whose brilliant court vanished as if by magic, some taking refuge in the retirement of the cloister, others dying of sadness, and others departing for strange regions, to seek perhaps in war the end of their days. Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo chose the last option.

"My discontent (he says) carried me out of Spain to pilgrimage through the world, having passed through many labors and necessities, wandering in diverse parts, as a youth, sometimes in the pay of war and others wandering from some parts and kingdoms to other regions" 20.

He walked thus through all of Italy, theater in those days of the prowess of the Castilian thirds and of the expertise of the Great Captain; and guided always by the healthy advice he had received in childhood, he fled carefully from the bad and vicious, seeking the company of the good and illustrious. Nor did his great fondness for studies abandon him. His love for painting brought him to Vinci, Titian, Michelangelo, and Urbino, princes of that enchanting art; his inclination toward the sciences and letters induced him to seek...

18 Bat. and Quinq. National Library, Cod. K. 81 fol. 56.
19 Bat. and Quinq.—Hist. Gen. y Nat. de Ind., Part III, lib. X, cap. 6.
20 Quinq., Part III, Est. 23, Ff. 106, fol. 48.