History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic by William Hickling Prescott

Author:William Hickling Prescott [Prescott, William Hickling]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Europe, Spain & Portugal
ISBN: 9789389701005
Google: 0UsPzAEACAAJ
Publisher: Lector House
Published: 2019-11-20T16:10:28+00:00

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The principal light, by which we are to be guided through the remainder of this history, is the Aragonese annalist, Zurita, whose great work, although less known abroad than those of some more recent Castilian writers, sustains a reputation at home, unsurpassed by any other, in the great, substantial qualities of an historian. The notice of his life and writings has been swelled into a bulky quarto by Dr. Diego Dormer, in a work entitled, "Progressos de la Historia en el Reyno de Aragon. Zaragoza, 1680;" from which I extract a few particulars.

Gerónimo Zurita, descended from an ancient and noble family, was born at Saragossa, December 4th, 1512. He was matriculated at an early age in the university of Alcalá. He there made extraordinary proficiency, under the immediate instruction of the learned Nuñez de Guzman, commonly called El Pinciano. He became familiar with the ancient, and a variety of modern tongues, and attracted particular attention by the purity and elegance of his Latinity. His personal merits, and his father's influence, recommended him, soon after quitting the university, to the notice of the emperor Charles V. He was consulted and employed in affairs of public importance, and subsequently raised to several posts of honor, attesting the entire confidence reposed in his integrity and abilities. His most honorable appointment, however, was that of national historiographer.

In 1547, an act passed the cortes general of Aragon, providing for the office of national chronicler, with a fixed salary, whose duty it should be to compile, from authentic sources, a faithful history of the monarchy. The talents and eminent qualifications of Zurita recommended him to this post, and he was raised to it by the unanimous consent of the legislature, in the following year, 1548. From this time he conscientiously devoted himself to the execution of his great task. He visited every part of his own country, as well as Sicily and Italy, for the purpose of collecting materials. The public archives, and every accessible source of information, were freely thrown open to his inspection, by order of the government; and he returned from his literary pilgrimage with a large accumulation of rare and original documents. The first portion of his annals was published at Saragossa, in two volumes folio, 1562. The work was not completed until nearly twenty years later, and the last two volumes were printed under his own eye at Saragossa, in 1580, a few months only before his death. This edition, being one of those used in the present history, is in large folio, fairly executed, with double columns on the page, in the fashion of most of the ancient Spanish historians. The whole work was again published, as before, at the expense of the state, in 1585, by his son, amended and somewhat enlarged, from the manuscripts left by his father. Bouterwek has fallen into the error of supposing, that no edition of Zurita's Annals appeared till after the reign of Philip II., who died in 1592. (Geschichte der Poesie und Beredsamkeit, band iii.

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