Oviedo y Valdéz, Gonzalo Fernández

Gonzalo Fernández Oviedo y Valdéz (1478-1557) was a Spanish historian and in 1519 the author of what was probably the first literary work produced in the New World, Libro del muy esforzado e invencible caballero Don Claribalte.

On his return to Spain, Oviedo wrote an important history of the Spanish Indies, La historia general y natural de las Indias^[1117], which included what is believed to be the first illustration of a pineapple. Most of his work was not published until the mid-19th century. (volume one available online^(a))

Sprague de Camp, without citation, listed^[0194] Oviedo as having located Atlantis in what is modern Iraq and that the survivors of its destruction escaped to the Americas. Thorwald C. Franke has drawn attention to the absence of any such reference in ‘La Historia’.

*In his Historia, Oviedo identified the Antilles as the legendary Hesperides.*

Stephen P. Kershaw notes^[1410.227] that Oviedo attributed the peopling of the Americas to Phoenicians and/or Carthaginians.

^(a) https://archive.org/details/generalynatural01fernrich