biography
| name: |
Torre, Alfonso de la
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pronunciation:
[toray]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (c.1410–c.60)
|
| biography:
| Poet and encyclopedist, probably born in Burgos, NC Spain. He studied the arts and theology at Salamanca, and as a political opponent of Don Álvaro de Luna he fled to the Kingdom of Aragón on the success of his enemy. He was well received there, and composed love-poems (coplas, canciones, decires, and esparzas) which were published in the Cancioneros of Valencia (1511), Seville (1540), and Antwerp (1573). He wrote the Visión delectable de la filosofía y artes liberales (c.1440), published in Burgos c.1485. It is an encyclopaedia using as source-material the Guide to the perplexed of Maimonides, a logical treatise by al-Ghazali, Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae, and the works of Avempace, Alain de Lille (12th-c), and Martianus Capella (4th-c). The first part deals with the liberal arts, metaphysics, and natural science, while the second covers moral philosophy. By one of those ironic coincidences that bedevil mediaeval bibliography, Torre's Visión was translated into Italian in 1556 by Domenico Delfini, and in 1663 rendered back into Spanish as Delfini's own work, by Francisco de Cáceres, who thought that he was introducing a novelty into Spain. |
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