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      Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, Author of “Lazarillo de Tormes”

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      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.