[JUAN ALFONSO DE BAENA]. Probably a converted Jew. His verse is contained in the Cancionero de Juan Baena, an anthology which he himself compiled around 1445, as a typical collection of the productions of the court poets of Juan II.’s time (cf. the ed. of Pidal, etc., Madrid, 1851, and of Michel, Leipzig, 1860).
[MANUEL DE LANDO] was one of these poets and a reputed disciple of Imperial, like whom he shows the influence of Dante. The system of poetical pleas, replications, replies, etc., here illustrated, was frequently employed in the court poetry of the time. It is but a continuation of the jeu parti and the joex partitz of French and Provençal poetry.
[Page 39].—ll. 7-8. Quando ... ygualante, i.e., when it has recourse to the sun, so that the latter, which has equalizing powers, may subdue its diverging rays.
l. 11. otealla, see [note to p. 36, l. 34], and cf. cobralla, [p. 40], l. 2.
l. 12. Syn ser demandante: Baena contends that actual verbal wooing is requisite.
[Page 40].—l. 1. vista de amor: Lando, like the Italian dolce stil nuovo poets, maintained that the love-glance constitutes sufficient wooing. Vergil is mentioned because of the importance which Dante gave to him.
[CARVAJAL (CARVAJALES)]. A Spanish poet who followed the Aragonese arms into Italy during the reign of Alfonso V., and at Naples wrote in both Spanish and Italian. Two romances of his, contained in the Cancionero de Stúñiga (cf. ed. 1872)—a compilation of Spanish verse written at Naples—are thought to be among the earliest of the kind. Cf. Menéndez y Pelayo, Antología, II, 181 ff.
[GÓMEZ MANRIQUE]. Uncle of the more illustrious Jorge Manrique, and a poet of considerable lyric merit. Cf. the edition of his Cancionero by Paz y Melia (1885). As in the work of his nephew, so in his poems, pathos is a distinguishing trait. He had some success also in political satire.
[Page 40].—l. 21. lo no puedes: this order of pronoun and negative adverb is not infrequent in earlier Spanish.
[Page 41].—l. 24. solares, i.e., mere sites formerly occupied by edifices.