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Mesa, Christobal de

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a Spanish poet, was born at Zafra (Estramadura) in 1550. The little that is known of him is gathered from his own poetical compositions, and particularly his two epistles to the count de Lemos, together with that addressed to the count de Castro. From these productions it appears that in his youth Mesa was the pupil of Sanchez, the most eminent of Spanish philologists, and that he had also deeply studied both Fernand de Herrera and Louis de Soto. In afterlife he spent some years in Italy, where he became intimately acquainted with the poet Tasso. He died, poor and obscure, about 1620. One of his poems is founded upon the tradition that the corpse of St. James, after his martyrdom in Jerusalem, was miraculously translated to Spain and deposited at Compostella, where from that day to this James has been honored as the patron saint of the realm. (See JAMES).

Another of his poems treats of Pelagius and the struggles of the Christians against the Moors up to the battle of Covadonga.; His third poetical work relates the battle of Tolosa, which destroyed the power of the Mohammedans, and secured the emancipation of the Peninsula. He also wrote El Patron de Espaia (Madrid, 1611, 12mo). See Ticknor, History of Spanish Literature, 2:462; Hoefer, Nouv; Biog. Generale, s.v.