Libro de las grandezas y cosas memorables de España

Libro de las grandezas y cosas memorables de España

The great deeds and memorable events of Spanish history are recorded in a codex that was printed on August 8th, 1549. Since then, this work has belonged among the most important books of Spanish literary history. The events portrayed by the author Pedro de Medina are illustrated Splendid printed graphics. This unbelievably precious codex is the first historical and geographical universal representation of Spain. De Medina’s legendary descriptions inform us about the history of a country that is one of Europe’s most beloved holiday destinations today.

The Scholar Pedro de Medina

Pedro de Medina was born ca. 1493 in the Spanish city of Seville. He is considered to be the most famous and talented mathematician, geographer, cartographer, astronomer, historian, and polygraph of the Spanish Renaissance. The true polymath attained great fame through his popular 1545 work on navigation. His treatise possessed inestimable importance for navigation and geography as a whole. The genius de Medina’s accomplishments brought him into the highest levels of Spain’s politics. During his lifetime, he was active as an advisory member in the most important administrative authority in Spain and Portugal, namely the Casa da India.

An Inestimably Valuable Source

The Libro de las grandezas y cosas memorables de España is considered today to be first travel guide to imperial Spain. Pedro de Medina’s intention was not to write a new history of Spain, like famous authors – Lucius Marineus Siculus and Diego de Valera inter alia – had already done before him. On the contrary, he precisely summarized the research of his predecessors. Additionally, he described his own discoveries on the peninsula and evaluated them. He reported on cities, holy sites, monuments, land formations, and natural phenomena. Equally so, he portrayed wondrous and heroic deeds, which occurred in the places described and were attributed to God or important Spaniards. The work not only remained a compilation of fantastic legends, but at the same time, represented one of the most important historical sources about Spanish culture and its population up the 16th century.