VEGA, GARCILASO DE LA, called "Inca" (c. 1616), historian of Peru, was born at Cuzco. His father, Sebas tiano Garcilaso (d. 1559), was a cadet of the illustrious family of La Vega, who had gone to Peru in the suite of Pedro de Alvarado, and his mother was of the Peruvian blood-royal, a circumstance of which he was very proud as giving him a right to the title which he claimed by invariably subscribing himself "Inca." About 156o he removed to Spain, but failed to win the preferment for which he hoped. After long service in the army, he turned to literature, solacing himself in his rather meagre circumstances by depicting the riches of the new world. He died in Spain in 1616. He published in 1590 a translation of Dialoghi di Amore of Leon Hebro, but his fame depends upon La Florida del Ynca (16o5) and his history of Peru (Pt. r, Commentarios Reales que tratan del origen de los Yncas, Lisbon, 1608 or 1609; Pt. 2, Cordova, 1617). This latter work has been translated into English, French, German and Italian and has been utilized by Robertson, Prescott, Mar montel and Sheridan. The former work, a history of the De Soto
expedition, was long regarded primarily as fiction. In spite of its exaggerations as to the numbers and wealth of the Indians, recent investigations have shown it to possess more ethnological value than had been hitherto supposed. Garcilaso de la Vega wrote be fore history was regarded as a science ; by temperament and cir cumstances he was inclined to the romantic ; nevertheless his work possesses permanent intrinsic interest and he will be remem bered as the first South American in Spanish literature.
See the monograph by Julia Fitzmaurice-Kelly (1921) in the His panic series, and the Lima edition of the Peruvian history (19!8-21) prepared by H. H. Urteaga with an introduction by Don Jose de la Riva Agiiero.