XIII THE PORTICO OF THE SPANISH RENAISSANCE THE next figure in this group of literary men in the reign of Juan II is the redoubtable Marquis of Santil- lana, Íñigo Lopez de Mendoza ( 1398-1458). San- tillana, came of a family already distinguished for its literary abilities, and destined to become still more so. I do not remember to have read of any group of kinsmen, anywhere, of such eminence in literature. Pedro López de Ayala, Fernán Pérez. de Guzmán ( 1378-1460), Jorge Manrique ( 1440-1478), Gar- cilaso de la Vega ( 1503-1536), and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza ( 1503-1575) were all, in their several generations, of his kith and kin. All are Spanish classics. In person Santillana was handsome and of a good figure, and in private life a quiet, agree- able, well-bred, cultivated gentleman. Hernando del Pulgar ( 1436-1492) says: "Dentro de sí tenía una hu- mildad que le facía amigo de Dios"; but in public life he was an ambitious, covetous, revengeful man, one of those envious noblemen who hounded Don Álvaro de Luna to his death. And afterward, with a vulgar lack of magnanimity, he wrote moralizing verses called the Doctrinal de Privados (the Lesson of Favor- ites), in which his fallen enemy is made to confess manifold sins and wickednesses. In literature, Santillana was governed by his -111- |