1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Alemán, Mateo

From Wikisource

←Aleman, Louis

1911 Encyclopædia Britannica Alemán, Mateo

Alembert, Jean le Rond d'→

See also Mateo Alemán on Wikipedia, and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.

ALEMAN, MATEO (1549—1609?), Spanish novelist and man of letters, was born at Seville in 1547 . He graduated at Seville University in 1564, studied later at Salamanca and Alcala, and from 1571 to 1588 held a post in the treasury; in 1594 he was arrested on suspicion of malversation, but was speedily released . In 1599 he published the first part of Guzmdn de Alfarache, a celebrated picaresque novel which passed through not less than sixteen editions in five years; a spurious sequel was issued in 1602, but the authentic continuation did not appear till 1604 . In 16o8 Aleman emigrated to America, and is said to have carried on business as a printer in Mexico; his Ortografia castellana (1609), published in that city, contains ingenious and practical proposals for the reform of Spanish spelling . Nothing is recorded of Aleman after 1609, but it is sometimes asserted that he, was still living in 1617 . He married, unhappily, Catalina de Espinosa in 1571, and was constantly in money difficulties, being imprisoned for debt at Seville at the end of 16oa . He is the author of a life (1604) of St Antony of Padua, and versions of two odes of Horace bear witness to his taste and metrical accomplishment . His chief title to remembrance, however, is Guzman de Alfarache, which was translated into French in 1600, into English in 1623 and into Latin in 1623 . See J . Hazaiias y la Rua, Discursos leidos en la Real Academia Sevillana de Buenas letras el 25 de marzo de 1802 (Sevilla, 1892); J . Gestoso y Perez, Nuevos datos para'ilustrar las biografias del Maestro Juan de Malara y de Mateo Aleman (Sevilla, 1896) . (J. F.-K.)