ARÉVALO, RODRIGO de. - Spanish ecclesiastical diplomat and writer, born at S. Maria de Nueva (Segovia) in 1404, died at Rome on 4 Oct. 1470. He served as chaplain, secretary, and counsellor to the Castilian kings John II and Henry IV, and from 1440 to 1448 he took part in the Council of Basle, working to bring the princes into obedience to Eugenius IV. From 1448 he lived in Rome, where he held various offices under the popes. Callistus III appointed him bishop of Oviedo (1457); Paul II transferred him in 1467 to Zamora (by which title he is often called Rodrigo of Zamora), then in 1468 to Calahorra, and in 1469 to Palencia—dioceses in which he never resided.
In 1468 he was papal referendary and castellan of Castel S. Angelo when he took custody of B. Platina and the other Pomponian academicians arrested on Paul II’s orders. On this occasion Platina composed the Altercatio sive disputatio de pace et bello, in which he defended the advantages of peace while Arévalo upheld the public utility of war; Cardinal Barbo was to be the final arbiter. Arévalo also exchanged letters with Platina.
A prolific writer, he was esteemed by the humanists (B. Platina introduces him as an interlocutor in De falso et vero bono, 1469), and composed works on history (Compendiosa historia hispanica, Rome c. 1470) and on ecclesiastical public law. Only five of his works were printed; fourteen (several on moral subjects) survive in manuscript, mostly in cod. Vat. 4881.
Arévalo’s fame rests chiefly on the Speculum vitae humanae (Rome 1468), a two-book treatise on moral philosophy dedicated to Paul II. In it he examines every social estate, criticising their defects impartially (including those of the clergy and the Curia) and pointing the way to virtue. Widely circulated in his own time, it was translated into German (1475), French (1477), and Spanish (1491).