Semblanzas de reyes

[1][2] It survives in a single late copy, probably from the 1470s, now manuscript 7415 in the Biblioteca Nacional de España.

[1][3] The Semblanzas consists of a prologue followed by 172 short biographies of, in order: the kings of Israel and Judah, the kings of the gentile nations (Assyria, Babylonia, Egypt), Alexander the Great, Roman consuls and Roman emperors, Muḥammad, the kings of the Visigoths, Ṭāriq ibn Ziyād and the rulers of the Iberian realms (Asturias, León, Castile, Navarre, Aragon, Portugal).

[4] The dating of the work is based on the image of Alfonso XI, which depicts a child.

[5] The work was almost certainly produced on the orders of Queen María de Molina, the young king's regent and grandmother.

[4] The text is written in Gothic cursiva textualis, with the only decorated initials at the start of the prologue and the first biography.

Beneath the first biographies there is an unidentified coat of arms—probably indicating that the original owner was from the Lordship of Biscay.