Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo

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Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo (also Garci Ordóñez de Montalvo ; * around 1440 , † around 1504 ) was a Spanish writer .

Life

Little is known about the life of Montalvo. He came from the village of Villa de Montalbo in the province of Cuenca . After the conquest of Alhama de Granada in the course of the Reconquista , Montalvo was a knight in the service of the Catholic Kings in 1482 . Later, between 1490 and 1500, he was councilor of Medina del Campo . He was a passionate horse and hunting lover.

He edited the most famous of all chivalric novels , Amadís de Gaula (German: Amadís of Gaul ), which goes back to late medieval models by an unknown, probably Castilian author. The version edited by Montalvo, which appeared in 1508, is considered the oldest surviving text version of the novel.

Montalvo added a fourth book to the three surviving volumes. He later wrote a sequel under the title Las Sergas de Esplandián (oldest surviving edition 1510), in which the adventures of the eldest son of Amadís are described. Other authors continued the Amadís novels.

In Esplandián , Montalvo described a fabulous island called California , which is to the west of India and is said to be populated by Amazons . The novel influenced Hernán Cortés and other explorers in their exploration of the west coast of America. On contemporary and even later maps up to the 18th century Baja California was marked as an island, despite the discovery by Francisco de Ulloa in 1539 that Baja California is a peninsula.

Works

  • Amadís de Gaula (1508)
  • Las sergas de Esplandián (1510)

literature

  • William Thomas Little: Notas preliminares para unos textos subversivos de Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo, ¿converso? In: DICENDA. Cuadernos de Filología Hispánica Vol. 20 (2002): 157-196.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Montalvo, Garci Rodríguez de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Montalvo, Garci Ordóñez de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish writer
DATE OF BIRTH around 1440
DATE OF DEATH around 1504