style, the work’s lucid prose is enriched by rich nautical
vocabulary, painting an expressive tableau composed of
both real and imaginary scenes of chivalric life. This
biography of Pero Niño, Count of Buelna, is histori-
cally authentic; but as a panegyric that exalts its subject
to heroic levels, it also becomes a literary narration
synthesizing the fi fteenth-century European chivalric
ideal of victory.
The author makes his presence known at the end of
the proemio, manifesting not only his close, dependent
relationship with Pero Niño but also his privileged po-
sition as a reliable witness of the “todas las más de las
cavallerías” (all the other forms of chivalry) that will
be narrated in the text. His position as naval lieutenant
would not be incompatible with his career as notary; it
seems probable, therefore, that he is the same Gutierre
Díaz, notary to the king, who acted as diplomatic am-
bassador on various occasions during the regency of
Fernando de Antequera and the reign of Juan II. The
environment of the royal chancellery would have been
favorable for the production of what Juan Marichal has
called Gutierre Díaz’s “voluntad de estilo.”
It is commonly believed that Díaz started El Victorial
in 1435, the year of Pero Niño’s last will and testament,
which contains a note about the work’s commission
and destination. However, the author may have begun
the biography as early as 1431, when Pero Niño was
named Count of Buelna. The work would likely have
been fi nished (save perhaps some of the supplementary
material) no later than 1436.
An extensive doctrinal and historical proemio opens
the text as a means of justifying the novelty of the bio-
graphical story. Pero Niño’s life will serve as a specifi c
noble and Christian exemplum in a chivalric treatise
(“tratado de caballería”) that had universal appeal. The
tratado itself, dedicated to narrating the count’s life, is
divided into three parts. The fi rst relates Pero Niño’s
lineage, birth, childhood, education, the initiation of
his career, and his fi rst marriage.
Díaz shrouds Pero Niño’s birth with an aura of legend
facilitated by the fact that Enrique III was born around
the same time and that Pero Niño’s own mother served
as the king’s wet nurse. In this way the author infers a
sort of “blood brotherhood” that is later ratifi ed as the
two boys are brought up together at court. To emphasize
the count’s education, the author incorporates a fragment
of the castigos used by an anonymous master to indoc-
trinate the boy. The chapters dedicated to Pero Niño’s
initiation into knighthood continue incomplete scenes
or add details that are absent from Ayala’s chronicles;
they also add new motifs to the chivalric biography
genre, such as the precocity of the hero, the appearance
of good omens, fi ghts against animals, the petition of
the king’s weapons during fi rst battle, or the comic
challenge made to a foreign giant. The protagonist’s
physical and moral portrait precedes his marriage to his
fi rst wife, Constanza de Guevara, which is embellished
with a curious discourse on the degrees of love.
The second part relates the expeditions that Pero
Niño made to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic as
captain of the Castilian fl eet between 1404 and 1406.
The essentially truthful nature of the historical events
narrated in these sections is confi rmed through the detail
of some of the diary like episodes, that mark the passing
of time day by day. Gutierre Díaz takes advantage of
Pero Niño’s arrival in England to introduce the fi ctitious
“History of Bruto and Dorotea,” pushing the chronicle
once more into novelistic territory and seasoning the
Pero Niño’s already notable exoticism with shades of
legend. The second part ends with a summary of the
knight’s participation in the fi rst year of the War of
Granada (1407).
The third part tells of the travails of the count’s life up
to his death. Of particular interest is the chapter on Pero
Niño’s “conquest” of Beatriz de Portugal, who would
become his second wife. The author also includes an
exonerative version of Pero Niño’s participation in the
sacking of Tordesillas, in which Juan II was retained by
the infante Enrique and his men. The biography ends
with a brief description of Pero Niño’s exile to Aragón, a
result of his support of Enrique’s faction; his return and
recuperation of the king’s trust; a summary of the life of
his ill-fated fi rstborn son, Juan; and passing references
to the count’s interventions in other military affairs.
Even though it is a fi fteenth-century biography, the
fi rst representative of a genre associated with the dawn
of the Renaissance, El Victorial does not display even the
slightest humanist infl uence in its treatment of fame and
the biographical subject, nor a trace of knowledge of or
curiosity for the classics. Díaz constructs a perfect chival-
ric world, without fi ssures, that seems destined to ward
off the political and ethical disorder of the real world.
He makes use of the basic procedures of the chronicle
narrative and the compositional organization of chivalric
fi ction. The unique characteristics of El Victorial arise
precisely from the way in which the author attempts
to assimilate the aristocratic conceptualization of life.
Therefore, the work is as contradictory as it is harmonic,
as disconcerting for the collector of objective past facts
as it is attractive for the cultural and literary histórian.Further Reading
Beltrán, R. (ed.) Gutierre Díaz de Games, “El Victoria.” Sala-
manca, 1996.
Carriazo, J. M. (ed.) El Victorial. Crónica de Pero Niño, conde
de Buelna. Por su alférez Gutierre Díaz de Games. Madrid,
1940.
Circourt Puymaigre, C. E. (trans.) Le Victorial. Chronique de Don
Pedro Niño, comte de Buelna. par Gutierre Díaz de Gamez
son alferez (1379–1449). París, 1987.DÍAZ DE GAMES, GUTIERRE