ARÉVALO, RODRIGO de. - Spanish ecclesiastical diplomat and writer, b. at S. Maria de Nueva (Segovia) in 1404, d. in Rome on 4 Oct. 1470. At the courts of the kings of Castile John II and Henry IV he was chaplain, secretary, and counselor, and he carried out various embassies from 1440 to 1448, to bring the princes to obedience to Eugene IV, during the Council of Basel. From 1448 he lived in Rome, where he held many offices from the Popes. Callistus III named him bishop of Oviedo (1457), Paul II, in 1467, of Zamora (for which reason he is often called Rodrigo of Zamora), then of Calahorra (1468), of Palencia (1469), sees in which A. never resided.
He was papal referendary and castellan of Castel Sant'Angelo in 1468 when he had custody of B. Platina and the other Pomponian academicians arrested by order of Paul II. On this occasion Platina composed the Alteratio sive disputatio de pace et bello, in which he defended the advantages of peace, while A. advocated the public utility of war. Card. Barbo was to be its final judge. A. also had an exchange of letters with Platina.
He was a prolific writer, esteemed by the humanists (B. Platina introduces him as an interlocutor in the De Jalo et vero bono, 1469), in history (Compendiosa historia hispanica, Rome ca. 1470) and in public ecclesiastical law. But only 5 of his works were published; 14 (several of them on moral subjects) survive in manuscript, for the most part in cod. Vatic. 4881.
A.'s fame is linked to the Speculum vitae humanae (Rome 1468), a moral treatise in two books dedicated to Paul II, in which A. examines all social states, criticizing their defects impartially (including those of the clergy and the Curia), and pointing out the path of virtue. Extremely widespread in his time, it was translated into German (1475), French (1477), and Spanish (1491).
Bibliography3 works
Antonino Romeo