Volume II Part 30 (1/2)

Zegri a.s.sumed the baptismal name of the Great Captain, Gonzalo Hernandez, whose prowess he had experienced in a personal rencontre in the vega of Granada. Marmol, Rebelion de Moriscos, ubi supra.--Suma de la Vida de Cisneros, MS.

[20] Hist. d'Espagne, tom. viii. p. 195.

[21] According to Robles, (Rebelion de Moriscos, p. 104,) and the Suma de la Vida de Cisneros, 1,005,000; to Conde, (El Nubiense, Descripcion d'Espana, p. 4, note,) 80,000; to Gomez and others, 5000. There are scarcely any data for arriving at probability in this monstrous discrepancy. The famous library of the Ommeyades at Cordova was said to contain 600,000 volumes. It had long since been dissipated; and no similar collection had been attempted in Granada, where learning was never in that palmy state which it reached under the Cordovan dynasty. Still, however, learned men were to be found there, and the Moorish metropolis would naturally be the depository of such literary treasures as had escaped the general s.h.i.+pwreck of time and accident. On the whole, the estimate of Gomez would appear much too small, and that of Robles as disproportionately exaggerated. Conde, better instructed in Arabic lore than any of his predecessors, may be found, perhaps, here, as elsewhere, the best authority.

[22] Gomez, De Rebus Gestis, lib. 2, fol. 30.--Marmol, Rebelion de Moriscos, lib. 1, cap. 25.--Robles, Vida de Ximenez, cap. 14.--Suma de la Vida de Cisneros, MS.--Quintanilla, Archetypo, p. 58.

[23] Yet the archbishop might find some countenance for his fanaticism in the most polite capital of Europe. The faculty of Theology in Paris, some few years later, declared ”que c'en etait fait de la religion, si on permettait l'etude du Grec et de l'Hebreu!” Villers, Essai sur l'Esprit et l'Influence de la Reformation de Luther, (Paris, 1820,) p. 64, note.

[24] Gibbon's argument, if it does not shake the foundations of the whole story of the Alexandrian conflagration, may at least raise a natural skepticism as to the pretended amount and value of the works destroyed.

[25] The learned Granadine, Leo Africa.n.u.s, who emigrated to Fez after the fall of the capital, notices a single collection of 3000 ma.n.u.scripts belonging to an individual, which he saw in Algiers, whither they had been secretly brought by the Moriscoes from Spain.--Conde, Dominacion de los Arabes, prologo.--Casiri, Bibliotheca Escurialensis, tom. i. p. 172.

[26] Gomez, De Rebus Gestis, fol. 30.--Abarca, Reyes de Aragon, rey 30, cap. 10.

[27] Casiri, Bibliotheca Escurialensis, tom. ii. p. 281.--Pedraza, Antiguedad de Granada, lib. 3, cap. 10.

[28] Gomez, De Rebus Gestis, fol. 31. There are some discrepancies, not important, however, between the narrative of Gomez and the other authorities. Gomez, considering his uncommon opportunities of information, is worth them all.

[29] Suma de la Vida de Cisneros, MS.--Gomez, De Rebus Gestis, lib. 2, fol. 31.--Marmol, Rebelion de Moriscos, lib. 1, cap. 26.

[30] Robles, Vida de Ximenez, cap. 14.--Mariana, Hist. de Espana, tom. ii.

lib. 27, cap. 5.--Quintanilla, Archetype, p. 56.--Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 212.

[31] Mariana, Hist. de Espana, ubi supra.--Bleda, Coronica, lib. 5, cap.

23.--Mendoza, Guerra de Granada, p. 11.

[32] Marmol, Rebelion de Moriscos, lib. 1, cap. 25.--Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 212.--Quintanilla, Archetype, p. 56.--Bleda, Coronica, ubi supra.

[33] Marmol, Rebelion de Moriscos, loc cit.--Mendoza, Guerra de Granada, lib. 1, p. 11. That such confidence was justified, may be inferred from a common saying of Archbishop Talavera, ”That Moorish works and Spanish faith were all that were wanting to make a good Christian.” A bitter sarcasm this on his own countrymen! Pedraza, Antiguedad de Granada, lib.

3, cap. 10.

[34] Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 212.--Bleda, Coronica, loc. cit.-- Marmol, Rebelion de Moriscos, ubi supra.

[35] Mariana, Hist. de Espana, tom. ii. lib. 27, cap. 5.--Robles, Vida de Ximenez, 14.--Suma de la Vida de Cisneros, MS.

[36] Gomez, De Rebus Gestis, fol. 32.--Robles, Vida de Ximenez, cap. 14.

[37] Gomez, De Rebus Gestis, ubi supra.

[38] Gomez, De Rebus Gestis, fol. 33.--Suma de la Vida de Cisneros, MS.

[39] Bleda, Coronica, lib. 5, cap. 23.--Mariana, Hist. de Espana, tom. ii.

lib. 27, cap. 5.--Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 215.--Marmol, Rebelion de Moriscos, lib. 1, cap. 27.--Gomez, De Rebus Gestis, lib. 2, fol. 32.-- Lanuza, Historias, tom. i. lib. 1, cap. 11.--Carbajal, a.n.a.les, MS., ano 1500.--Bernaldez, Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 159.--The last author carries the number of converts in Granada and its _environs_ to 70,000.

[40] ”Tu vero inquies,” he says, in a letter to the cardinal of Santa Cruz, ”hisdem in snum Mahometem vivent animis, atque id jure merito suspicandum est. Durum namque majorum inst.i.tute relinquere; attamen ego existimo, consultum optime fuisse ipsorum admittere postulata: paulatim namque nova superveniente disciplina, juvenun saltem et infantum atque eo tutius nepotum, inanibus illis superst.i.tionibus abrasis, novis imbuentur ritibus. De senescentibus, qui callosis animis induruerunt, haud ego quidem id futurum inficior.” Opus Epist., epist. 215.--Also, Carta de Gonzalo, MS.

[41] ”Magnae deinceps,” says Gomez, ”apud omnes veneration! Ximenius esse cospit.--Porro plus mentis acie videre quam solent homines credebatur, qufid re ancipiti, neque plane confirmata, barbara civitate adhoc suum Mahumetum spirante, tanza animi contentione, ut Christi doctrinam amplecterentur, laboraverat et effecerat.” (De Rebus Gestis, fol. 33.) The panegyric of the Spaniard is endorsed by Flechier, (Histoire de Ximenes, p. 119,) who, in the age of Louis XIV., displays all the bigotry of that of Ferdinand and Isabella.

[42] Talavera, as I have already noticed, had caused the offices, catechisms, and other religious exercises to be translated into Arabic for the use of the converts; proposing to extend the translation at some future time to the great body of the Scriptures. That time had now arrived, but Ximenes vehemently remonstrated against the measure. ”It would be throwing pearls before swine,” said he, ”to open the Scriptures to persons in their low state of ignorance, who could not fail, as St.