Jerónimo (or Gerónimo) de Zurita y Castro or simply Jerónimo (or Gerónimo) de Zurita (1512 – 3 November 1580) was a

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

historian of the sixteenth century who founded the modern tradition of historical scholarship in Spain. Born at

Zaragoza Zaragoza, also known in English as Saragossa,''Encyclopædia Britannica'"Zaragoza (conventional Saragossa)" is the capital city of the Zaragoza Province and of the autonomous community of Aragon, Spain. It lies by the Ebro river and its tributari ...

, Kingdom of Aragon, he studied at Alcalá de Henares under the

Hellenist Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

Hernán Nuñez. Through the influence of his father, Miguel de Zurita, physician to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, he entered the public service as magistrate at

Barbastro Barbastro (Latin: ''Barbastrum'' or ''Civitas Barbastrensis'', Aragonese: ''Balbastro'') is a city in the Somontano county, province of Huesca, Spain. The city (also known originally as Barbastra or Bergiduna) is at the junction of the rivers Cin ...

, and in 1537 was appointed assistant-secretary of the

Inquisition The Inquisition was a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy, conducting trials of suspected heretics. Studies of the records have found that the overwhelming majority of sentences consisted of penances, ...

. In 1548 Zurita was nominated official chronicler of the Kingdom of Aragon, and in 1566 Philip II of Spain attached him as secretary to the council of the Inquisition, delegating to him the conduct of all matters sufficiently important to require the king's signature. Zurita resigned these posts on the January 21, 1571, obtained a sinecure at Zaragoza, and dedicated himself wholly to the composition of his '' Anales de la Corona de Aragón'', the first part of which had appeared in 1562; he lived to see the last volume printed at Zaragoza on the April 22, 1580, and died on the November 3 following. Zurita's style is somewhat crabbed and dry, but his authority is unquestionable; he displayed a new conception of an historian's duties, and, not content with the ample materials stored in the Archives of Aragon, continued his researches in the libraries of

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

and

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

Quotes

"Historians use legends as geographers do fabulous animals-to symbolize unknown countries in their maps" - quoted from ''Spanish Historiography and Iberian Reality'' by J. N. Hillgarth, ''History and Theory'', Vol. 24, No. 1 (Feb., 1985), pp. 23–43.

Sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Zurita Y Castro, Jeronimo De 1512 births 1580 deaths 16th-century Spanish historians People from Zaragoza 16th-century male writers