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Alonso Hernández del Portillo (1543–1624) was a Spanish local politician and historian, remembered for being the first
chronicle A chronicle ( la, chronica, from Greek ''chroniká'', from , ''chrónos'' – "time") is a historical account of events arranged in chronological order, as in a timeline. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and lo ...
r of the city of Gibraltar.


Biography

Hernández del Portillo was born in Gibraltar during the Spanish period. He was a member of the
Gibraltar City Council The Mayor of Gibraltar is the ceremonial official of the British overseas territory of Gibraltar. The mayor is appointed by the elected Members of Parliament Between 1605 and 1610 he wrote his most notable work, ''Historia de la Muy Noble y Más Leal Ciudad de Gibraltar'' ( en, History of the Very Noble and Most Loyal City of Gibraltar), the first written history of Gibraltar. The work was later reviewed by himself between 1615 and 1622. The manuscript of the chronicle was kept in the archives of Algeciras and was one of the sources of the work ''History of Gibraltar'' by Spanish historian
Ignacio López de Ayala Ignacio López de Ayala (18 October 1739 Grazalema, Cádiz – 24 April 1789 in Tarifa) was a Spanish writer, astronomer and historian. Life He was a professor of poetry at the Reales Estudios de San Isidro in Madrid. He authored a neoclassical ...
in 1792, one of the canonical works of the Spanish historiography about Gibraltar.


Work

Hernández del Portillo chronicles the history of his city from its origins, which he set to be in the times of the Libyan and Ancient Greek Heracles (as a symbol of the Phoenician and Ancient Greek colonisation of the Iberian Peninsula), to his days. It also includes many legendary stories and almost lacks any information about the Moor period. The main value of his work is in his account of the facts he witnessed at first hand, a period not well known in the history of Gibraltar. His accounts made the 16th century people, industry, port, commercial, fishing and agricultural activities of Gibraltar known. The ''Historia de la Muy Noble y Más Leal Ciudad de Gibraltar'' has been published in recent times by the Spanish historian
Antonio Torremocha Antonio is a masculine given name of Etruscan origin deriving from the root name Antonius. It is a common name among Romance language-speaking populations as well as the Balkans and Lusophone Africa. It has been among the top 400 most popular mal ...
, a specialist in the history of the Campo de Gibraltar. The first edition, titled ''Historias de Gibraltar'' ( en, Stories of Gibraltar), was published in 1994 ().Record of ''Historias de Gibraltar'' in the Ministry of Culture of Spain
/ref> A second edition, revised and expanded, was published in 2008, under the title ''History of Gibraltar'' ( en, History of Gibraltar). This second edition is the first issue of the collection ''Fuentes para la Historia del Campo de Gibraltar'' ( en, Sources of the History of the Campo de Gibraltar). Torremocha defines Portillo as a Renaissance Man.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hernandez Del Portillo, Alonso 1543 births 1624 deaths Spanish people from Gibraltar 17th-century Spanish historians Historians of Gibraltar