Note 17 — INTRODUCTION.

Herrera gives Llerena as the birthplace of Cieza de Leon (Dec. vi, lib. vi, cap. 4; and Dec. vii, lib. ix, cap. 19). In the latter of these two passages, in the first edition, the word is printed Erena, an error which is repeated in the editions of Antwerp and of Gonzalez Barcia. Piedrahita (lib. iv, cap. 2) repeats that Cieza de Leon was a native of Llerena. The town of Llerena is nineteen leagues east of Badajos, at the foot of the Sierra de San Miguel. It was taken from the Saracens in 1241; and in 1340 Alfonso XI assembled the Cortes at Llerena. Besides Cieza, it produced the Holguins, and Juan de Pozo, the watchmaker who placed the giralda on the tower of Seville.