doubted whether he ever taught Greek. There is no evidence that he
even knew that tongue. Besides the Infante Don Juan, the Duke of
Braganza, Don Juan of Portugal, Villahermosa, cousin to the King, Don
Iñigo de Mendoza, and the Marquis of Priego were numbered among his
pupils. Nor did his personal influence cease when they left his
classes. The renascence of learning did not move with the spontaneous,
almost revolutionary, vigour that characterised the revival in Italy,
nor was Peter Martyr of the paganised scholars in whom the cult
for antiquity had undermined Christian faith--else had he not been
acceptable to Queen Isabella.

Some authors, including Ranke, have described him as occupying the
post of Secretary of Latin Letters. Officially he never did. His
knowledge of Latin, in a land where few were masters of the language
of diplomatic and literary intercourse, was brought into frequent
service, and it was no uncommon thing for him to turn the Spanish
draft of a state paper or despatch into Latin.[6] He refused a chair
in the University of Salamanca, but consented on one occasion to
deliver a lecture before its galaxy of distinguished professors and
four thousand students. He chose for his subject the second satire of
Juvenal, and for more than an hour held his listeners spellbound under
the charm of his eloquence. He thus described his triumph: _Domum
tanquam ex Olympo victorem primarii me comitantur_.[7]

[Note 6: _Talvolta era incaricato di voltare in latino le
correspondenze diplomatiche pin importanti. I ministri o i lor
segretari ne faceano la minuta in ispagnuolo, ed egli le recava nella
lingua che era allora adoperata come lingua internazionale_. Ciampi,
_Nuova Antologia_, tom, iii., p. 69.]