JUAN DE MENA (1447)

Poet who was a forerunner of the Renaissance in Spain.

He died in Torrelaguna, Madrid 1456 in which church is his tomb with the epitaph on fate.

Mena belonged to the literary court of King John II of Castilla where he was renowned for the Latin erudition he had acquired at the University of Salamanca and in Italy.

He is best known for his poem El laberinto de fortuna (1444) also called Las trescientas, a complex work that owes much to Lucan, Virgil and Dante. Writing in arte mayor, lines of 12 syllables that lend themselves to stately recitation, he sought to make the Spanish language a literary vehicle adequate to his epic vision of Spain and her mission.

His themes are medieval but his understanding of language suggests an affinity to the new manner of expression that would come to be associated with the Renaissance.