Garcilaso de la Vega

Garcilaso de la Vega, Peruvian historian

Garcilaso de la Vega (gärsēlä`sō dā lä vā`gä), 1539–1616, Peruvian historian; son of the Spanish conquistador Sebastián Garcilaso de la Vega and an Incan princess and therefore called the Inca. He grew up in Peru during the turbulent post-Conquest period. He went (1560) to Spain, where he first served in the army and later began to write. His most important work, The Royal Commentaries of Peru (1609–1617; tr. 1871) is a valuable source of information about the conquest of Peru and the lives and legends of the Inca.

Bibliography

See biography by J. G. Varner (1968).

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Garcilaso de la Vega, Spanish poet

Garcilaso de la Vega (gärthēlä`sō thā lä vā`gä), 1503?–1536, lyric poet of the Spanish Golden Age, b. Toledo. Garcilaso, the embodiment of the cultured and gifted courtier, was chiefly responsible for the renovation of Spanish poetry. He was the first to adapt successfully the Italian 11-syllable line to the mood and content of Spanish poetry—an innovation suggested by his friend Boscán. Garcilaso's verse, noted for its delicacy, was published with that of Boscán in 1543. It includes sonnets, elegies, odes, and three eclogues.

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Garcilaso de la Vega

 known as El Inca

(born April 12, 1539, Cuzco, Peru—died April 24, 1616, Córdoba, Spain) One of the great Spanish chroniclers of the 16th century. Garcilaso was the illegitimate son of a conquistador and an Inca noblewoman. Raised in his father's household on a vast estate in Peru, he absorbed the traditions of both cultures. After going to Spain in 1560, he served as captain in the Spanish army against the Moors, and then he entered the priesthood. He is best known for La Florida del Ynca (an account of Hernando de Soto's expeditions north of Mexico) and his history of Peru. He was related to his namesake, the Spanish Golden Age poet Garcilaso de la Vega (b. 1503, Toledo, Spain—d. Oct. 14, 1536, Nice, duchy of Savoy).

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Garcilaso de la Vega 

(called “El Inca”). Born circa 1539; died circa 1616. Historian of Peru. Garcilaso de la Vega’s father was the governor of Cuzco (Peru); his mother belonged to the Incan upper aristocracy.

Garcilaso de la Vega saw military service in Spain from 1560 to 1570. He later settled in Córdoba and took up a literary career. He moved to Portugal in the early 17th century, where in 1605 he published a work about the conquest of Florida. It was here also that the first part of his large work on the history of the Incas and the conquest of Peru was published (1609; second part, 1617). He was sympathetic toward the Indians who had become the victims of the conquerors.

WORKS

Los comentarios reales que tratan del origen de los Incas, parts 1-2. Lisbon-Córdoba, 1609-17.

M. S. AL’PEROVICH