Note 599 — Chapter XVIII

The best account of them is in Pellicer, Bib. de Traductores, loc. cit. I am sorry to add, that the specimen given of the translation from Virgil, though short, affords some reason to doubt whether the Marquis was a good Latin scholar. It is in prose, and the Preface sets forth that it was written at the earnest request of John, King of Navarre, whose curiosity about Virgil had been excited by the reverential notices of him in Dante’s “Divina Commedia.” See, also, Memorias de la Academia de Historia, Tom. VI. p. 455, note. In the King’s Library at Paris is a prose translation of the last nine books of Virgil’s Æneid, made, in 1430, by a Juan de Villena, who qualifies himself as a “servant of Iñigo Lopez de Mendoza.” (Ochoa, Catálogo de Manuscritos, Paris, 1844, 4to, p. 375.) It would be curious to ascertain whether the two have any connection, as both seem to be connected with the Marquis of Santillana.