Eleonora Osorio y Vega. Tra fede, virtù e nobiltà

In 1549 Juan de Vega, lord of Grajal and viceroy of Sicily, wrote the Instructions for his son Hernando, a list of warnings and advices to suggest how to behave at the court of the emperor Charles V. The principles of virtue and nobility were the basis of the model of gentry proposed in the Instructions, although an important role is played by the cultural education given him by his mother, Eleonora Osorio, reconstructed thanks to the discovery of numerous books from her library, an admirable example of works in three languages (Castilian, Latin and Italian), based on the principles of faith, virtue and chivalrous nobility. From such baseline, our work aims at providing an interpretation of the model of virtue and gentry given by Juan de Vega and his wife Eleonora Osorio – a very interesting character, closely related to Ignazio of Loyola – through the study of his testament, drawn up in Palermo on the 13th of February 1550. A virtuous mixture indicating the model of Renaissance gentry, instructed to dexterous use of weapons but also linked to the study and passion for books.