Talk:Luis del Mármol Carvajal

This article is unsatisfactory in present form

Bergerie (talk) 11:21, 31 August 2013 (UTC)The article contains spelling mistakes, and an obvious fault in stating that Mármol Carvajal lived in the 15th century (he was born in 1520).

More seriously, I can see no source for the statements about his life in North Africa (nor anything else, for that matter). What I do know about him is that his Historia de la rebelión y castigo de los Moriscos del Reino de Granada, published in 1600, is the main source on the campaign by Catholic forces from 1568 till 1571 to subdue and eventually to expel the Moors living in the former Nasrid Kingdom of Granada - this followed the capture of Granada by the Catholic Monarchs in 1492. The war is briefly described in the Wikipedia article Morisco Revolt (to which I have contributed).

This is an enormous, detailed chronicle. I have used major parts of it in writing my own recent book on the events in the Alpujarra (Bubión - the story of an Alpujarran village).

It is known that Mármol participated in that campaign, on the Spanish side, so his account, though authoritative, is not always objective. The other main chronicle - Guerra de Granada by Diego Hurtado de Mendoza - is more balanced. (The mention of this work in the article is incomprehensible.)

The historical significance of that war is only now being recognised. It was the fulfilment of the "Reconquista" and the end of Moslem presence on the Iberian peninsula. Although this has been mainly forgotten in Christian Europe, it is still a cause of resentment in the Moslem world.

Consequently, I feel that the article should bring out the importance of Mármol del Carvajal as the main source of our knowledge of those events. I don't want to start rewriting it before checking further on existing information, but I hope others - perhaps the original author - can contribute. Above all, more facts about Mármol's life?

Works published

• Descripción general de África, sus guerras y vicisitudes, desde la fundación del mahometismo hasta el año 1571 . Ed. Granada, (1573–1599).

Apparently based on Leo Africanus and with additional places and more recent dates.

• Historia del [sic] rebelión y castigo de los moriscos del Reino de Granada . Edición digital: Alicante : Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, 2001. Edición original en el catálogo de la Biblioteca de la Universidad de Alicante . Edición digital a partir de Biblioteca de Autores Españoles : historiadores de sucesos particulares, tomo I, Madrid, M. Rivadeneyra, 1852, pp. 123–365. Localización: Biblioteca General de la Universidad de Alicante. Sig.FL RS/284.

See:http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/FichaObra.html?Ref=5286  :

There is a cheap facsimile edition of another contemporary book in which he polemized with the author, albeit it was no printed at the time of the morisco´s war in the Alpujarra by Diego Hurtado de Mendoza: GUERRA DE GRANADA (FACSIMIL, edition of 1842), de HURTADO DE MENDOZA, DIEGO , 15.0x21.0 cm , 215 pages , softcover, ISBN 978-84-9761-157-2 Nº Edición:1ª ED. FACS. DE 1842 , (2005), reprit facsimile at Valladolid town. This dvent can be dadsted in the period 1568 - 1572. There was a former edition by Sancha, 1797.

There, he mentions a certain Pedro Zapata del Marmol, my brother, "escribano del Consejo de Castilla.