PIETRO MARTIRE d'ANGHIERA. — Historian and geographer, b. at Arona to a modest family in 1459, he came to Rome while not yet twenty, where he served Cardinals Ascanio Sforza and Giovanni Arcimboldo, and subsequently the ambassador of Castile to the Holy See, the Count of Tendilla. Appreciated for his intelligence and learning, he went with Tendilla to Spain in 1487 and, welcomed into court circles, took part in the final phase of the war against the Arabs of Granata.
After the capture of that city, he donned the clerical habit and became counsellor and chaplain to Queen Isabella, remaining in Spain for the rest of his life (apart from a journey to Egypt, where in 1501 he successfully carried out a delicate mission); he was therefore able to follow closely the entire heroic period of the great geographical discoveries and the related events, in which he was particularly interested. He personally knew Colombo, Vespuci, Vasco da Gama, Sebastiano Caboto, Magellano, and Fernando Cortes. With Queen Isabella he cooperated in the noble attempt to lift the Spanish people out of ignorance and spiritual misery; from 1518 he was a member of the Council of the Indies. He died in 1526 at Granata and was buried there in the Cathedral.
His work Decades de Orbe Novo covers, in eight books, thirty-four years of the history of the discoveries of America, from Colombo’s first expedition, which aroused his admiration. The first edition, containing only the first Deca, was published without his knowledge in 1511; in 1516 three Deche appeared; the complete work was printed in 1530, when the author was already dead. The Decades are a historical source of the very first order, because P. M. witnessed or had direct knowledge of the events he relates. But also of great importance is his extensive correspondence with numerous acquaintances and friends (Opus epistolarum; 1530): although some letters may be literary exercises or addressed to fictitious correspondents, the greater part is certainly authentic, and certain letters, such as those that spread the first news of Colombo’s voyage in Italy, possess exceptional value. Also noteworthy is the Legatio Babylonica, that is, the account of his mission in Egypt. An eminent humanist, a conscientious historian, and a statesman imbued with the Christian spirit, P. M. is one of the noblest figures in the milieu of the Spanish court in the sixteenth century.