Note 103 — Chapter IV

I am aware there are poems in the Cancioneros Generales, by a Don John Manuel, which have been generally attributed to Don John Manuel, the Regent of Castile in the time of Alfonso XI., as, for instance, those in the Cancionero of Antwerp (1573, 8vo, ff. 175, 207, 227, 267). But they are not his. Their language and thoughts are quite too modern. Probably they are the work of Don John Manuel who was Camareiro Mòr of King Emanuel of Portugal, († 1524,) and whose poems, both in Portuguese and in Spanish, figure largely in the Cancioneiro Gerale of Garcia Rresende, (Lisboa, 1516, fol.,) where they are found at ff. 48-57, 148, 169, 212, 230, and I believe in some other places. He is the author of the Spanish “Coplas sobre los Siete Pecados Mortales,” dedicated to John II. of Portugal, († 1495,) which are in Bohl de Faber’s “Floresta,” (Hamburgo, 1821-25, 8vo, Tom. I. pp. 10-15,) taken from Rresende, f. 55, in one of the three copies of whose Cancioneiro then existing (that at the Convent of the Necessidades in Lisbon) I read them many years ago. Rresende’s Cancioneiro is now no longer so rare, being in course of publication by the Stuttgard Verein. The Portuguese Don John Manuel was a person of much consideration in his time; and in 1497 concluded a treaty for the marriage of King Emanuel of Portugal with Isabella, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. (Barbosa, Biblioteca Lusitana, Lisboa, 1747, fol., Tom. II. p. 688.) But he appears very little to his honor in Lope de Vega’s play entitled “El Príncipe Perfeto,” under the name of Don Juan de Sosa. Comedias, Tom. XI., Barcelona, 1618, 4to, p. 121.