Pedro Menéndez de Avilés and the Conquest of Florida
Pedro Menéndez de Avilés and the Conquest of Florida
A New Manuscript
Pedro Menéndez de Avilés (1519–1574) founded St. Augustine in 1565. His expedition was documented by his brother-in-law, Gonzalo Solís de Merás, who left a detailed and passionate account of the events leading to the establishment of America’s oldest city.
Until recently, the only extant version of Solís de Merás’s record was one single manuscript that Eugenio Ruidíaz y Caravia transcribed in 1893, and subsequent editions and translations have always followed Ruidíaz’s text. In 2012, David Arbesú discovered a more complete record: a manuscript including folios lost for centuries and, more important, excluding portions of the 1893 publication based on retellings rather than the original document.
In the resulting volume, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés and the Conquest of Florida, Arbesú sheds light on principal events missing from the story of St. Augustine’s founding. By consulting the original chronicle, Arbesú provides readers with the definitive bilingual edition of this seminal text.
David Arbesú is associate professor of Spanish at the University of South Florida. He is the editor of several medieval Spanish works such as the Sendebar, Flores y Blancaflor, and the Fazienda de Ultramar; and Golden Age authors such as Lope de Vega and Pérez de Montalbán. He has produced a verse translation of Spain’s most popular play, Don Juan Tenorio.
