[Pietro Martire]. Italian scholar and courtier, born at Anghierra, in the district of Milan, Italy, on the 2nd of February 1457. At the age of thirty-two he entered the service of Isabella, queen of Spain. He founded a school for the children of the Spanish nobility in Madrid during 1492; was tutor to the royal princes and ambassador to the doge of Venice and to Egypt. He was chosen a member of the council of the Indies in 1524, and held other important court offices. His De Orbe Novo, dealing with the events of the first thirty years of American discovery, and his letters, are still of historical value. He died in Valladolid in 1526.
