[590] Crónica de D. Juan el Segundo, Año 1407, Cap. 4, and 1434, Cap. 8, where his character is pithily given in the following words: “Este caballero fue muy grande letrado é supo muy poco en lo que le cumplia.” In the “Comedias Escogidas” (Madrid, 4to, Tom. IX., 1657) is a poor play entitled “El Rey Enrique el Enfermo, de seis Ingenios,” in which that unhappy king, contrary to the truth of history, is represented as making the Marquis of Villena Master of Calatrava, in order to dissolve his marriage and obtain his wife. Who were the six wits that invented this calumny does not appear.
[591] Zurita, Anales de Aragon, Lib. XIV. c. 22. The best notice of the Marquis of Villena is in Juan Antonio Pellicer, “Biblioteca de Traductores Españoles,” (Madrid, 1778, 8vo, Tom. II. pp. 58-76,) to which, however, the accounts in Antonio (Bib. Vetus, ed. Bayer, Lib. X. c. 3) and Mariana (Hist., Lib. XX. c. 6) should be added. The character of a bold, unscrupulous, ambitious man, given to Villena by Larra, in his novel entitled “El Doncel de Don Enrique el Doliente,” published at Madrid, about 1835, has no proper foundation in history.
[592] Pellicer speaks of the traditions of Villena’s necromancy as if still current in his time (loc. cit. p. 65). How absurd some of them were may be seen in a note of Pellicer to his edition of Don Quixote, (Parte I. c. 49,) and in the Dissertation of Feyjoó, “Teatro Crítico” (Madrid, 1751, 8vo, Tom. VI. Disc. ii. sect. 9). Mariana evidently regarded the Marquis as a dealer in the black arts, (Hist., Lib. XIX. c. 8,) or, at least, chose to have it thought he did.
[593] Lope de Barrientos was confessor to John II., and perhaps his knowledge of these very books led him to compose a treatise against Divination, which has never been printed. (Antonio, Bib. Vetus, Lib. X. c. 11,) but of which I have ample extracts, through the kindness of D. Pascual de Gayangos, and in which the author says that among the books burned was the one called “Raziel,” from the name of one of the angels who guarded the entrance to Paradise, and taught the art of divination to a son of Adam, from whose traditions the book in question was compiled. It may be worth while to add, that this Barrientos was a Dominican, one of the order of monks to whom, thirty years afterwards, Spain was chiefly indebted for the Inquisition, which soon bettered his example by burning, not only books, but men. He died in 1469, having filled, at different times, some of the principal offices in the kingdom.
[594] Cibdareal, Centon Epistolario, Epist. lxvi.
[595] Coplas 126-128.
[596] It is found in the “Cancionero General,” 1573, (ff. 34-37,) and is a Vision in imitation of Dante’s.
[597] The “Arte Cisoria ó Tratado del Arte de cortar del Cuchillo” was first printed under the auspices of the Library of the Escurial, (Madrid, 1766, 4to,) from a manuscript in that precious collection marked with the fire of 1671. It is not likely soon to come to a second edition. If I were to compare it with any contemporary work, it would be with the old English “Treatyse on Fyshynge with an Angle,” sometimes attributed to Dame Juliana Berners, but it lacks the few literary merits found in that little work.
[598] All we have of this “Arte de Trobar” is in Mayans y Siscar, “Orígenes de la Lengua Española” (Madrid, 1737, 12mo, Tom. II. pp. 321-342). It seems to have been written in 1433.
[599] The best account of them is in Pellicer, Bib. de Traductores, loc. cit. I am sorry to add, that the specimen given of the translation from Virgil, though short, affords some reason to doubt whether the Marquis was a good Latin scholar. It is in prose, and the Preface sets forth that it was written at the earnest request of John, King of Navarre, whose curiosity about Virgil had been excited by the reverential notices of him in Dante’s “Divina Commedia.” See, also, Memorias de la Academia de Historia, Tom. VI. p. 455, note. In the King’s Library at Paris is a prose translation of the last nine books of Virgil’s Æneid, made, in 1430, by a Juan de Villena, who qualifies himself as a “servant of Iñigo Lopez de Mendoza.” (Ochoa, Catálogo de Manuscritos, Paris, 1844, 4to, p. 375.) It would be curious to ascertain whether the two have any connection, as both seem to be connected with the Marquis of Santillana.