Sanchez, Roderico

, a Spanish prelate, admired for his writings in the fifteenth century, was born at Santa Maria de Nieva, in the diocese of Segovia, in 1404. After being instructed in classical learning, and having studied the canon law for ten years at Salamanca, he was honoured with the degree of doctor in | that faculty; but afterwards embraced the eqclesiasUca! profession, received priest’s orders, and was made successively archdeacon of Trevino in the diocese of largos, dean of Leon and dean of Seville. The first preferment he held twenty years, the second seven, and the third two years. Ahout 1440, John II. king of Castille, appointed him envoy to the emperor Frederick III. and he was also afterwards employed in similar commissions or embassies to other crowned heads. When Calixtus III. became pope, Henry IV. king of Castille, sent him to congratulate his holiness, which occasioned him to take up his residence at Rome. In all his embassies, he made harangues to the different princes to whom he was sent, which are still preserved in ms. in the Vatican library. On the accession of pope Paul II. he made Sanchez governor of the castle of St. Angelo, and keeper of the jewels and treasures of the Roman church, and afterwards promoted him to the bishoprics of Zamora, Calahorra, and Palencia. These last appointments, however, were little more than sinecures, as he never quitted Rome, and employed what time he could spare from his official duties in that city in composing a great many works, of which a list of twenty-nine may be seen in our authorities. He died at Rome Oct. 4, 1470$ and was interred in the church of St. James of Spain. Although so voluminous a writer, by far the greater part of his works remain in ms. in the Vatican and other libraries ) we know of three only which were published, 1. his history of Spain, “Historiae Hispanise partes quatuor.” This Marchand seems to think was published separately, but it was added to the “Hispania Illustrata” of Bel and Schott, published at Francfort in 1579, and again in 1603. 2. “Speculum vitse humaoce, in quo de omnibus omnium vitte ordinum ac conditionum commodis ac incommodis tractatur,’ r Rome, 1468, folio, which, with three subsequent editions, is accurately described in the” Bibliotheca Speuceriana.“This work contains so many severe reflections on the clergy of the author’s time, that some protestant writers have been disposed to consider him as a brother in disguise. It is certainly singular that he could hazard so much pointed censure in such an age. 3.” Epistola de expugnatione Nigroponti>,“folio, without date, but probably before the author’s death. A copy of this likewise occurs in the” Bibl. Spenceriana." Those who are desirous of farther information respecting Sanchez or his works may be amply | gratified in Marchand, who has a prolix article on the subject. ¹