Born in the province of Alava, he passed some of his youth at the court of Isabella of Castile. In 1528 he entered the Franciscan order, and afterwards accompanied the Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, during his journeys to Italy and other parts of Europe. He held successively the offices of court preacher, court historiographer, Bishop of Guadix and Bishop of Mondoñedo. His earliest work, entitled Reloj de principes, published at Valladolid in 1529, and, according to its author, the fruit of eleven years' labour, is a didactic novel, designed, after the manner of Xenophon's Cyropaedia, to delineate in a somewhat ideal way, for the benefit of modern sovereigns, the life and character of an ancient prince, Marcus Aurelius, distinguished for wisdom and virtue. It was often reprinted in Spanish; and before the close of the century had also been translated into Latin, Italian, French and English, an English translation being by J Bourchier (London, 1546) and another being by T North.
It is difficult now to account for the extraordinary popularity of the work. It gave rise to a great literary controversy, the author having tried to claim it as historically accurate, appealing to an imaginary "manuscript in Florence." Other works of Guevara are the Decada de los Césares (Valladolid, 1539), or "Lives of the Ten Roman Emperors," in imitation of the manner of Plutarch and Suetonius; and the Epistolas familiares (Valladolid, 1539-1545), sometimes called "The Golden Letters," often printed in Spain, and translated into all the principal languages of Europe. They are in reality a collection of stiff and formal essays which have long ago fallen into merited oblivion. Guevara, whose influence upon. the Spanish prose of the 16th century was considerable, also wrote Libro de los inventores del arte de marear (Valladolid, 1539, and Madrid, 1895).
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