Note XV‑53 — Chapter XV · PANAMÁ AND PERU. 1538-1550.

The most partial biographer of the Pizarros is Fernando Pizarro y Orellana, author of Varones Ilvstres del Nvevo Mvndo, Madrid, 1639, folio. The book contains the lives of Columbus, Ojeda, Cortés, the four Pizarros, Almagro, and García de Paredes, but the greater part is devoted to the author's namesakes and kinsmen, by the side of whom the other heroes appear in comparatively faint outline. Every incident that can in any way redound to their credit is made to shine with a lustre unsurpassed even by the pearls and gold for which they so recklessly staked their lives. The brilliancy indeed is so strong as to merge into complete obscurity the bloody deeds and shameful traits which characterize the name. This is intentional on the part of the writer, who not only suppresses facts most notorious, but in glossing over the later revolt of Gonzalo, even attempts to justify it. His object is to advocate for the heirs of Hernando Pizarro, the restoration of his estates and titles of marquis as more fully set forth in the Discurso Legal, i Politico, published the same year, immediately after the Varones. The work is, in brief, the pleading of a learned lawyer, as the author proves himself, supplemented with quaint and abstruse notes and profuse marginals chiefly from classic writers.