Juan de Flores (c. 1455 - c. 1525)[1] was a Spanish courtier, knight, administrator, diplomat[2] and author, most known for two "sentimental novels": Grimalte y Gradissa and Grisel y Mirabella, both probably written between 1470 and 1477[3] and published around 1495.
[5] Representative of a class of late medieval "humanist knights",[6] he was associated with the court of García Álvarez de Toledo, 1st Duke of Alba and may have been the nephew of the noble Pedro Alvarez Osorio.
[12] The work presents itself as a kind of sequel to Giovanni Boccaccio's Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta: a Spanish young lady, Gradissa, is heart-broken over the fate of Boccaccio's Lady Fiammetta (presented as a real person), and she decides to reject the advances of all men, including her noble lover Grimalte.
[13] The story is as follows: The King of Scotland has a daughter, Mirabella (Isabella in other versions), whom he loves so much, that he rejects all suitors for her hand and locks her up in his palace.
Denounced by a servant, they are both imprisoned, and the king decides to judge them according to a law dictating that the person found more culpable is to be put to death, while the other is to be exiled.
As the bonfire is prepared, her lover Grisel throws himself in the fire and the public stops all further action, claiming God has chosen his victim.