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Garcilaso de La Vega (Historian)

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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Called "Inca" (c. 1535-1616), historian of Feru, was born at Cuzco. His father, Sebastiano Garcilaso (d. 1559), was a cadet of the illustrious family of La Vega, who had gone to Peru in the suite of Pedro de Alvarado, and his mother was of the Peruvian blood-royal, a circumstance of which he was very proud as giving him a right to the title which he claimed by invariably subscribing himself "Inca." About 1560 he removed to Spain, and after serving against the Moors incurred the hatred of Philip II. and was imprisoned at Valladolid. He died in Spain in 1616. A diligent student of the language and traditions of his maternal ancestors, Garcilaso left a valuable work on Peruvian history; the first part, entitled Comentarios reales que tratan del origen de los Yncas, was first published at Lisbon in 1609, and the second part, Historia general del Peru, in 1617.

His history is a source from which all subsequent writers on the subject have largely drawn, and still continues to be one of the chief authorities on ancient Peru. An English translation by Sir Paul Rycaut was published in 1688; one of the first part of the work by Sir C. R. Markham for the Hakluyt Society (London, 1869 -71); and the book has also been translated into French. Garcilaso also wrote a history of Florida, La Florida del Ynca, historia del adelantado Hernando de Soto (Lisbon, 1605, and again Madrid, 1723). An edition of his works in seventeen volumes was published at 1Vladrid in 1800. See W. H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Peru, vol. i. (London, 1902); Sir C. R. Markham, The Incas of Peru (Iwo).