LÓPEZ de AYALA, PEDRO. — Spanish writer and politician, b. at Vitoria in 1332, d. at Calahorra at the beginning of Apr. 1407. Chancellor of Castile and a combatant, he was also, chronologically, the first of Spain’s Italianists. He conferred literary dignity upon the chronicle, until then monotonous and neglected, and throughout his work, informed by moralizing aims, reflected the probity of his character and his love of culture.
A substantial section of the Rimado de Palacio, in « cuadernu via », partly conceived in the prison of Oviedo after the disaster of Alsubarrota (1386) and inspired by a pessimistic vision of society, whose deviations L. bitterly satirizes, contains lyrics on sacred subjects: particularly noteworthy are the canticles to the Virgin of Guadalupe and of Montserrat, and the extensive ethical-religious epilogue derived largely from the Old Testament. Even in the Libro de ceteria o de las aves de caza moral excursus are frequent. More accomplished, literarily, are the Crónicas, a bleak and deeply felt account of Spanish events from 1350 to 1406, fundamentally conceived in the medieval spirit, but at times enlivened by the reflections of Italian pre-humanism: Merimée drew upon it for his reconstruction of the history of Pedro I of Castile. He also translated from Livy, Boethius, St. Gregory the Great, St. Isidore, Guido delle Colonne (Historia troiana), and Boccaccio (De casibus virorum illustrium).