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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 July 2024
The Spanish conquests of the Americas were not yet completed when famous Humanists already began to appear in the first generation of native-born Spanish-speaking Americans. A mestizo born in 1539 and who liked to call himself “the Indian whose mouth is full” thus published in 1590, in Madrid, the first-fruits of the Humanism of the New World. The son of an Indian woman, he succeeded in very unusual circumstances in writing a superb Castilian version of a classic work of Renaissance Neoplatonism. Its title reads: The Indian's translation of the three Dialogues of Love by Leone Ebreo, from Italian into Spanish, by Garcilaso Inca de la Vega, a native of the great city of Cuzco, capital of the Kingdoms and provinces of Peru.
1 The Preface of the Historia general del Perú, 2nd part of the Comentarios, is addressed "To the Indians, mestizos and oriollos … by their brother and com patriot." This was the last page he wrote.
2 Comentarios, volume IX, chapter 24.
3 C. Dionisotti, "Appunti su Leone Ebreo," in Italia Medioevale e Umanistica, Padua, II (1959), 409 pp.; this excludes the opinion, expressed by S. Caramella in the Preface of his edition of Leone Ebreo, Bari, 1929. The discussion dates back to the 16th century. For Leone Ebreo, cf. the well-known books by K. Gebhadt and H. Pflaum; for the Abrabanel of Portugal, cf. the books by J. de Carvalho.
4 I am dealing with the works read by Garcilaso in " La biblioteca del Inca " (The Inca's Library) in Nueva Rev. de Filología Hispánica (New Journal on Spanish Philology), II, Mexico (1948); additions in III (1949).
5 R. Porras-Barrenechea, El Inca Garcilaso en Montilla, Lima, 1955, 219 pp.
6 Historia general del Perú, end of the second volume; I have dealt with this particular point in "El Inca español", in Américas, Washington, May 1953.
7 The old writings by Menéndez Pelayo on La estética platónica en los místicos de los siglos XVI y XVII, Madrid, 1896, is still up-to-date for the influence of master Avila in Andalusia, cf. M. Bataillon, "Jean d'Avila retrouvé," in Bulletin Hispanique, LVII, Bordeaux (1955), and also the works of Luis Sala Balust to which the Bulletin refers.
8 Porras, op. cit., Preface. G. Lohmann-Villena, "Apostillas documentales en torno al I.G.", in Mercurio Peruano, no. 375, Lima, 1958.
9 A. Castro, El pensamiento de Cervantes, Madrid, 1925, IV; he treats the subject again in Aspectos del vivir hispánico, Santiago de Chile, 1949; K. Vossler, Introducción a la literatura española del siglo de oro, Madrid, 1945, V.
10 E. Imaz, Topia y utopía, Mexico, 1941.
11 When Thomas More deals with religions, he also writes, as Pico did, about the subject of human dignity and the old concept of Plotinus, which was revived by Ficino, that God is present in all religions.
12 S. Zavala, La utopía de T. Moro en la Nueva España, Mexico, 1937; and Ideario de Vasco de Quiroga, Mexico, 1941; on Bacon, as a reader of the Inca, R. Martí-Abelló, " Garcilaso Inca de la Vega ", in Revista Hispánica Moderna, New York, 1950.
13 I have dealt with this particular point, and also with Iberico's opinion, in "El Inca Garcilaso platónico" in Las Moradas, Lima, 1949, No. 7-8; on the discussion on History and heroic tales with regard to the Inca, as treated by me in these writings, see also A. Miró-Quesada in the Preface to his edition of the Florida, Mexico, 1956.
14 E. Asensio, "Dos cartas desconocidas del Inca Garcilaso," in Nueva Re vista de Filologia Hispánica, VII, Mexico, 1953; R. Menéndez Pidal, El P. Las Casas y Vitoria, Madrid, 1958, p. 28 and 44; and "La moral en la conquista del Perú", in Seis temas peruanos (Col. Austral, No. 1297), Madrid, 1960; M. Bataillon, in Annales du Collège de France, 1956, p. 371; E. Moreno Báez. "El providencialismo del Inca Garcilaso," in Estudios Americanos, No. 35-36, Sevilla, 1954; etc.
15 Comentarios, I, 24; III, 1; I, 15; II, 20; for Valera, VIII, 5.
16 B. Sánchez Alonso, Historia de la historiografía española, Madrid, 1946, II, pp. 254 and 266; and "El Inca Garcilaso platónico," loc. cit.
17 Riva Agüero, La historia en el Perú (History in Peru), Lima, 1910, I; and Elogio del Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, in A. Rosenblatt's edition of the Comentarios, III, Buenos Aires, 1944.
18 The influence of Petrarch's Stoicism in Spain has been stressed by A. Cas tro ever since his publications on the subject of honor, in 1916; for Pico and Pomponazzi, cf. L. Zanta, La renaissance du stoïcisme au XVIe siècle, Paris, 1914.
19 In the Genealogía de Garci Pérez de Vargas.
20 L. Monguió, La poesía post-modernista peruana, Mexico, 1954, is a useful review of the "indigenous" ideas of Mariátegui, Uriel Garcia, Luis Valcárcel, L. A. Sánchez, etc.
21 Comentarios, I, 5; VIII, 24; Historia General del Perú, end of volume III.
22 Don Diego de Córdova, a friend of the Inca, remembers that "he usually said that his property was not brilliant" (R. Vargas-Ugarte, " Nota sobre Garci laso", in Mercurio Peruano, Lima, 1930, No. 137-138.
23 Historia General del Perú, I, 7.
24 Cf. my essay, "La idea de la honra en el Inca Garcilaso," in Panorama, Washington, 1952, I, 1.
25 Comentarios, V, 7; VIII, 23.
26 I deal with this subject in " El Inca Garcilaso, historiador apasionado ", in Cuadernos Americanos, Mexico, July-August. 1950.
