Garcilaso De La Vega

Related Category: Historians, Miscellaneous: Biographies

(gärsēlä´sō dā lä vā´gä), 1539–1616, Peruvian historian; son of the Spanish conquistador Sebastián Garcilaso de la Vega and an Incan princess and therefore called the Inca. He grew up in Peru during the turbulent post-Conquest period. He went (1560) to Spain, where he first served in the army and later began to write. His most important work, The Royal Commentaries of Peru (1609–1617; tr. 1871) is a valuable source of information about the conquest of Peru and the lives and legends of the Inca.

See biography by J. G. Varner (1968).