translations of classical and humanistic works, among
which we know of Quintilian’s Declamationes maiores
(1456), Cicero’s Disputationes Tusculanae (1456) and
De oratore (date unknown), and Macrobius’s Sanu-
malia (1463 or later). The most important fruit of his
Florentine visit, however, was his personal friendship
with the humanist Giannozzo Manetti (1396–1459),
who dedicated his De illustribus longaeuis (1439) to
Guzmán’s father and his pathfi nding Plutarchan paral-
lel lives of Socrates and Seneca to Guzmán himself
(1440, with notes on Seneca’s Córdoban connections
supplied by the addressee). In addition, Manetti cast
two works into humanist Latin from notes prepared by
Guzmán (1439); Apologia Nunnii, an autobiographical
selfjustifi cation addressed to his father, and Laudatio
Agnetis Numantinae, an extended eulogy of his mother
supposedly replacing a lost alabanza (works of praise)
by Enrique de Villena. After returning to Seville in
early 1440 Guzmán corresponded on literary matters
with Alfonso de Cartagena, Alfonso de Palencia, and
the Marquis of Santillana. The only works defi nitely
attributable to Guzmán’s own hand are his translation
of Manetti’s epideictic Tuscan oration on the qualities
of the military commander, Orazione a Gismondo
Pandolfo de’ Malatesia (1453), made for the Marquis
of Santillana (c. 1455); a revision of the Alfonsine
translation of Seneca’s De ira made (probably) for his
mother (1445); and a highly popular vernacular compen-
dium of Aristotle’s Ethics made for his brother Juan de
Guzmán, señor of La Algaba, (1467) and subsequently
copied and printed a number of times either without
attribution, or under false ascriptions to Alfonso de
Cartagena and Alfonso de la Torre. It is highly probable,
however, that Guzmán was instrumental in the Castilian
translations of Bruni’s Vita di Marco Tulio Cicerone
and of Decembrio’s versions of the works by Seneca
and Quintus Curtius mentioned above, as well as the
dissemination of other classical texts. When Guzmán
died in Seville at some date between 1467 and 1490,
Vespasiano tells us in his curious Vita di messer Nugno
di casa reale di Gusmano (our fullest contemporary
source) that Guzmán’s splendid library came to a bad
end. Nevertheless, Schiff’s judgment that he was one of
those to whom early Spanish humanism owed the most
is fully justifi ed.
See also Philip the GoodFurther Reading
Bisticci, V. da. Le vite. Vol. 1. Ed. A. Greco. Florence, 1970.
435–41.
Lawrance, J. Un episodio del proto-humanismo español: tres
opúsculos de Nuño de Guzmán y Giannozzo Manetti. Sala-
manca, 1989.
Morel-Fatio, A. “Notice au trois manuscrits de la bibliothèque
d’Osuna,” Romania 14 (1885), 94–108.
Russell, P.E., and A.R.D. Pagden. “Nueva luz sobre una versión
de la Ética a Nicómaco: Bodleian Library MS Span. D. 1.” In
Homenaje a Guillenno Guastavino. Madrid, 1974. 125–46.
Schiff M. La Bibliothèque du Marquis de Santillane. Paris,- 449–59.
Jeremy Lawrance
GUZMÁN, NUÑO DE