Alonso Hernández del Portillo (1543–1624) was a Spanish

Spanish people

The Spanish are citizens of the Kingdom of Spain. Within Spain, there are also a number of vigorous nationalisms and regionalisms, reflecting the country's complex history....

 local politician

Politician

A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

 and historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

, remembered for being the first chronicle

Chronicle

Generally a chronicle is a historical account of facts and events ranged in chronological order, as in a time line. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events, the purpose being the recording of events that occurred, seen from the perspective of the...

r of the city of Gibraltar.

Biography

Hernández del Portillo was born in Gibraltar during the Spanish period. He was a member of the Gibraltar City Council and held responsibilities over the supply of food to the city during the late 16th and early 17th century. Between 1605 and 1610 he wrote his most notable work, Historia de la Muy Noble y Más Leal Ciudad de Gibraltar (History of the Very Noble and Most Loyal City of Gibraltar), the first written history of Gibraltar. The work was later reviewed by himself between 1615 and 1622. The manuscript

Manuscript

A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...

 of the chronicle was kept in the archives of Algeciras

Algeciras

Algeciras is a port city in the south of Spain, and is the largest city on the Bay of Gibraltar . Port of Algeciras is one of the largest ports in Europe and in the world in three categories: container,...

 and was one of the sources of the work History of Gibraltar by Spanish historian Ignacio López de Ayala in 1792, one of the canonical works of the Spanish historiography about Gibraltar.

Work

Hernández del Portillo chronicles the history of his city from its origins, which he set to be in the times of the Libya

Libya

Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....

n and Ancient Greek

Ancient Greece

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 Heracles

Heracles

Heracles ,born Alcaeus or Alcides , was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus...

 (as a symbol of the Phoenicia

Phoenicia

Phoenicia , was an ancient civilization in Canaan which covered most of the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent. Several major Phoenician cities were built on the coastline of the Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550...

n and Ancient Greek colonisation of the Iberian Peninsula

Iberian Peninsula

The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...

), to his days. It also includes many legendary stories and almost lacks any information about the Moor period. The main value of his work is in his account of the facts he eyewitnessed

Witness

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, a period not well known in the history of Gibraltar. His accounts made the 16th century people, industry, port, commercial, fishing and agricultural activities of Gibraltar known.

The Historia de la Muy Noble y Más Leal Ciudad de Gibraltar has been published in recent times by the Spanish historian Antonio Torremocha, a specialist in the history of the Campo de Gibraltar

Campo de Gibraltar

The comarca of the Campo de Gibraltar is a comarca in the province of Cádiz, Spain, in the southwestern part of the autonomous community of Andalusia, the southernmost part of continental Western Europe...

. The first edition, titled Historias de Gibraltar (Stories of Gibraltar), was published in 1994 (ISBN 978-84-606-1763-1). A second edition, revised and expanded, was published in 2008, under the title History of Gibraltar (History of Gibraltar). This second edition is the first issue of the collection Fuentes para la Historia del Campo de Gibraltar (Sources of the History of the Campo de Gibraltar). Torremocha defines Portillo as a Renaissance Man

Renaissance humanism

Renaissance humanism was an activity of cultural and educational reform engaged by scholars, writers, and civic leaders who are today known as Renaissance humanists. It developed during the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth centuries, and was a response to the challenge of Mediæval...

.