Juan del Encina

Juan del Encina(b Salamanca, 12 July 1468; d León, late 1529 or early 1530). Spanish poet, dramatist and composer.

He was born Juan de Fermoselle in Salamanca, where his father was a shoemaker; it has been suggested that he was of Jewish descent. One of at least seven children, he, like several of his brothers, pursued a career that brought him into contact with the higher echelons of society. Diego de Fermoselle was professor of music at Salamanca University from 1479 until 1522, and may well have taught his younger brother. Juan became a choirboy in the cathedral in 1484, where another of his brothers, Miguel, was a chaplain. By 1490, when he, too, briefly held a chaplaincy at Salamanca Cathedral (a position he was forced to resign as he was not ordained), he had adopted the name Juan del Encina, probably his matronymic, but also perhaps a conscious reference to the Castilian holm oak as well as the ilex of Virgil’s bucolic poetry which clearly exerted considerable influence over him. He would have coincided with the great Spanish humanist Antonio de Nebrija at Salamanca, where he studied law probably between 1488 and 1492, and it is assumed that he would have come under his influence. It has previously been accepted that he entered the service of the Duke of Alba, Don Fadrique de Toledo, immediately after graduating in 1492. However, it is possible that his first post was as a magistrate or corregidor in northern Spain, which would have been a royal appointment. If this were the case, Encina would not have become a member of the duke’s household until 1495, which has implications for the chronology of his works, especially the plays he composed for performance at the ducal palace at Alba de Tormes, close to Salamanca; most of his works, including the first eight eglogas, were published in Salamanca in 1496. He may have entertained hopes of serving Prince Juan (d 1497), son and heir of Ferdinand and Isabella, who in that year had taken up residence in the city. In 1498 Encina applied for the post of cantor (maestro de capilla) at Salamanca Cathedral, but was unsuccessful; after much prevarication on the part of the chapter the position was divided among three singers, including his rival Lucas Fernández. He sought promotion elsewhere, and by 1500 was in Rome, securing benefices in the Salamancan diocese with papal support. Two years later, and despite the opposition of the cathedral chapter, a papal bull decreed that he should hold the benefice assigned to the cantor, which by then belonged to Fernández. Encina did not, however, return to Spain, having found Rome congenial and obtained the favours of successive popes and cardinals. By October 1503 he may have secured a place in the household of Alexander VI, and later in that of Cardinal Francisco Loriz (d 1506). In 1508 he was granted the archdiaconate of Málaga Cathedral by Julius II, and he attended his first chapter meeting in 1510, although the chapter curtailed his responsibilities because he was still not ordained. It did, however, entrust him with cathedral business, and over the next eight years he travelled several times to Rome, notably in 1512–13, when his play Placida y Vitoriano was performed at the house of a Valencian cardinal, and to the royal court in Valladolid. In 1518 he resigned his position at Málaga for a simple benefice at nearby Morón, and the following year he was finally ordained and travelled to the Holy Land in order to sing his first Mass in Jerusalem. Before his journey, of which he wrote an account in verse, he had been nominated by Leo X for the priorship of León Cathedral, and he attended his first chapter meeting there in November 1523. He held this position until his final illness in December 1529, his will being presented on 14 January 1530. It was his wish that he should be buried beneath the choir of Salamanca Cathedral, and his remains were moved there in 1534.