1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Conde, José Antonio

CONDE, JOSÉ ANTONIO (1766–1820), Spanish Orientalist, was born at Peraleja (Cuenca) on the 28th of October 1766, and was educated at the university of Alcalá. His translation of Anacreon (1791) obtained him a post in the royal library in 1795, and in 1796–1797 he published paraphrases from Theocritus, Bion, Moschus, Sappho and Meleager. These were followed by a mediocre edition of the Arabic text of Edrisi’s Description of Spain (1799), with notes and a translation. Conde became a member of the Spanish Academy in 1802 and of the Academy of History in 1804, but his appointment as interpreter to Joseph Bonaparte led to his expulsion from both bodies in 1814. He escaped to France in February 1813, and returned to Spain in 1814, but was not allowed to reside at Madrid till 1816. Two years later he was re-elected by both academies; he died in poverty on the 12th of June 1820. His Historia de la Dominación de los Árabes en España was published in 1820–1821. Only the first volume was corrected by the author, the other two being compiled from his manuscript by Juan Tineo. This work was translated into German (1824–1825), French (1825) and English (1854). Conde’s pretensions to scholarship have been severely criticized by Dozy, and his history is now discredited. It had, however, the merit of stimulating abler workers in the same field.