Juan del Encina

Juan del Encina , 1469?-c.1530, Spanish dramatist, musician, and poet, b. Encino. He served as court musician to the duke of Alba in Italy, and in 1513 his play Plácida y Victoriano was presented in Rome. His Cancionero (1496) contains several plays as well as musical compositions and a treatise on poetry. His best-known works, the Églogas, are pastoral religious plays in imitation of Vergil. Encina was ordained a priest in 1519. His works followed Italian influence in combining humanist culture with popular drama.

Encina, Juan del (1469–c.1539), Spanish play-wright, who with his later contemporaries Torres Naharro and Gil Vicente founded and secularized Spanish Renaissance drama. He was director of entertainments in the household of the Duke of Alba for several years from about 1492, and for his patron wrote eight eclogues, or pastoral dialogues, in the Italian style, though the content was purely Spanish. Three of these are on religious themes—Christmas, the Passion, and the Resurrection; the others are secular, with simple but well-constructed plots and amusing dialogue, often in peasant dialect. Into all of them Encina introduced villancicos, or rustic songs, and his work in general owed much to his musical talent. The plays were probably first acted by talented amateurs of high rank, or their servants, either at Court or in the private houses of the nobility; but with the rise of professional actors they eventually found their way into the repertories of the strolling players.

Encina, Juan del [ Juan del Enzina] (b Salamanca, 1468; d Léon, c.1530). Sp. composer and poet. Chorister, Salamanca Cath. Served 2nd Duke of Alba, 1492–8, then worked in Rome. Archdeacon of Málaga 1510–12, in Rome 1512–19, then prior of Léon from 1519. Wrote several eclogues (pastoral plays) and a large number of songs for 3 or 4 vv. His Cancionero, 1495, was an anthology of plays and poems.