FERNÁN RODRÍGUEZ PORTOCARRERO, GREAT TROUBADOUR OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY

Abstract

In around 1449, when Santillana wrote the Proemio e carta, he branded Fernán Rodríguez Portocarrero as the great troubadour of the house of the Duke of Arjona. The cancionero sources do not preserve any poems in his name, but we must give credit to Don Iñigo and accept that he is an author whose output seems to have been completely lost, since there is other evidence supporting his judgement. Fernán Rodríguez would not therefore be a minor poet, although, to date, in addition to the fact that his work was lost, he was an obscure and almost forgotten figure. This study establishes his identity and aims to ascribe to him some poems attributed in the cancioneros, opaquely, to “a Portuguese”.