Pedro Mejía (old Spanish spelling: Pero Mexía), (between 17 January and 6 September 1497 – 17 January 1551) was a Spanish

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

writer, humanist and historian. He was born and died in

Seville Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula ...

, where he lived for the majority of his life and for which there is always a special affection in his writings. He studied humanities and law at Seville and Salamanca universities. He maintained correspondence with

Erasmus of Rotterdam Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (; ; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus;''Erasmus'' was his baptismal name, given after St. Erasmus of Formiae. ''Desiderius'' was an adopted additional name, which he used from 1496. The ''Roterodamus'' w ...

Luis Vives Juan Luis Vives March ( la, Joannes Lodovicus Vives, lit=Juan Luis Vives; ca, Joan Lluís Vives i March; nl, Jan Ludovicus Vives; 6 March 6 May 1540) was a Spanish (Valencian) scholar and Renaissance humanist who ...

and Juan Gines de Sepulveda. In 1548, he was appointed official chronicler of the court of Emperor Charles V. His major work is ''Silva de varia lección'' (''A Miscellany of Several Lessons'') (1540), which became an early best seller across Europe. It was reprinted 17 times in the sixteenth century and was translated into Italian (1542), French (1552) and English (1571). Within a century, ''Silva'' reached 31 editions in Spanish, and 75 in foreign languages. It is an encyclopedic miscellany or mixture of subjects of interest across the diverse repertoire of humanistic knowledge of the time. The work takes material from the ''Attic Nights'' by Aulus Gellius, the ''Banquet of the Sophists'' by

Athenaeus Athenaeus of Naucratis (; grc, Ἀθήναιος ὁ Nαυκρατίτης or Nαυκράτιος, ''Athēnaios Naukratitēs'' or ''Naukratios''; la, Athenaeus Naucratita) was a Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourishing about the end of th ...

, the ''Saturnalia'' of Macrobius, the ''Memorable deeds and sayings'' of

Valerius Maximus Valerius Maximus () was a 1st-century Latin writer and author of a collection of historical anecdotes: ''Factorum ac dictorum memorabilium libri IX'' ("Nine books of memorable deeds and sayings", also known as ''De factis dictisque memorabilibus'' ...

, the ''Inventor of all things'' by Polidoro Virgilio, the ''Moralia'' and ''Parallel Lives'' of

Plutarch Plutarch (; grc-gre, Πλούταρχος, ''Ploútarchos''; ; – after AD 119) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for hi ...

and, above all, the ''Natural History'' of

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ' ...

. It also contains work by

. Traces of this miscellany can be found in works by Mateo Alemán,

Miguel de Cervantes Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 NS) was an Early Modern Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-eminent novelists. He is best kno ...

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

and Montaigne, to mention only a few of the authors he influenced. Other major works by Mexia are ''Historia imperial y cesárea'' (1545), ''Historia del Emperador Carlos V'' (unfinished and unpublished) and ''Coloquios y Diálogos'' (1547).

References

*''Mexia, Pedro''. Ed. Antonio Castro Díaz. ''Silva de varia lección''. Ed. Cátedra. Vol 1-2. Madrid, 1989.
History of Spanish Literature
by George Ticknor, Ticknor & Fichers, 1864. Pages 10–15.
Pedro Mejía
The Power of the Word website, Spanish, 2011 Renaissance writers Spanish Renaissance humanists Spanish Renaissance people 1497 births 1551 deaths Spanish male writers Spanish philosophers 16th-century Spanish historians Spanish encyclopedists University of Salamanca alumni 16th-century male writers {{Spain-writer-stub