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ENRIQUE DE VILLENA (1384-1434)

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Originally appearing in Volume V28, Page 81 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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ENRIQUE DE See also:

VILLENA (1384-1434)  , See also:Spanish author, was See also:born in 1384 . Through his grandfather, See also:Alphonso de See also:Aragon, See also:count de See also:Denia y Ribagorza, he traced his descent from Jaime II. of Aragon and See also:Blanche of See also:Naples . He is commonly known as the See also:marquess de See also:Villena; but, although a marquessate was at one See also:time in the See also:family, the See also:title was revoked and annulled by See also:Henry III . Villena's See also:father, See also:Don Pedro de Villena, was killed at Aljubarrota; the boy was educated by his See also:grand-father, showed See also:great capacity for learning and was reputed to be a wizard . About 1402 he married Maria de See also:Albornoz, senora del Infantado, who speedily became the recognized See also:mistress of Henry III.; the complaisant See also:husband was rewarded by being appointed See also:master of the military See also:order of Calatrava in 1404, but on the See also:death of Henry at the end of 1406 the knights of the order refused to accept the nomination, which, after a See also:long contest, was rescinded in 1415 . He was See also:present at the See also:coronation of See also:Ferdinand of Aragon at See also:Saragossa in 1414, retired to See also:Valencia till 1417, when he moved to See also:Castile to claim See also:compensation for the loss of his mastership . He obtained in return the lordship *See also:Florio) of Miesta, and, conscious of his unsuitability for warfare or See also:political See also:life, dedicated himself to literature . He died of See also:fever at See also:Madrid on the 15th of See also:December 1434 . He is represented by a fragment of his Arte de trobar (1414), an indigestible See also:treatise composed for the See also:Barcelona See also:Consistory of See also:Gay See also:Science; by Los Trabajos de See also:Hercules (1417), a pedantic and unreadable See also:allegory; by his Tratado de la See also:Consolation and his handbook to the pleasures and fashions of the table, the Arte cisoria, both written in 1423; by a commentary on See also:Psalm viii. ver . 4, which See also:dates from 1424; by the Libre de Aojamiento (1425), a ponderous dissertation on the evil See also:eye and its effects; and by a See also:translation of the Aeneid, the first ever made, which was finished on the loth of See also:October 1428 . His treatise on leprosy exists but has not been published . Villena's writings do not justify his extraordinary fame; his subjects are devoid of See also:charm, and his See also:style is so uncouth as to be almost unintelligible .

Yet he has an assured See also:

place in the See also:history of Spanish literature; he was a generous See also:patron of letters, his translation of See also:Virgil marks him out as a See also:pioneer of the See also:Renaissance, and he set a splendid example of intellectual curiosity . Moreover, there is an abiding dramatic See also:interest in the baffling See also:personality of the solitary high-born student whom Lope de See also:Vega introduces in Porfiar hasta morir, whom See also:Ruiz de See also:Alarcon presents in La Cueva de See also:Salamanca, and who reappears in the i9th See also:century in See also:Larra's Macias and in See also:Hartzenbusch's See also:play La Redcma encantada . (J .

End of Article: ENRIQUE DE VILLENA (1384-1434)
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