Argensola (Arjensola), Bartolomé Leonardo de

ARGENSOLA (Arjensola), Bartolomé Leonardo de. - Spanish poet, narrator and historian, of a family originally Italian, the Leonardo of Ravenna, b. at Barbastro on 26 Aug. 1562, d. at Saragossa on 14 Feb. 1631. He studied at Huesca, at Saragossa and at Salamanca, and, ordained a priest in 1588, he later became chaplain to Marianna of Austria. After the empress's death, he withdrew from the court, but was appointed Chief Chronicler of the Crown of Aragon.

Although his work as a historian is valuable (Relación de las alteraciones populares en Zaragoza, año de 1591, which remained incomplete; Primera parte de las Anales de Aragón [1630], continuing Zurita; Memorias de la gloriosa Santa Isabel, infanta de Aragón y reina de Portugal; Historia de la conquista de las Islas Molinas [1609]), he owes greater fame to his poetic vein, which won him the esteem of Lope and of Calderón, and earned him the title, which he shared with his brother Lupercio, of «Spanish Horace». His output was principally religious, and for its sumptuous sonority, rhetorical dignity, and powerful and enthusiastic flight, it appeared to Valbuena comparable to some of the best poems of the English metaphysical school, especially of Richard Crashaw. In this connection, songs and sonnets on the death of Christ, on St. Teresa, St. Mary Magdalene, St. Lawrence, St. Michael, etc., are remembered and admired.