ÁLVAREZ GATO, JUAN

ÁLVAREZ GATO, JUAN (1445?–1510?), Spanish poet. Álvarez Gato flourished in the reigns of Henry IV and of Ferdinand and Isabella. A member of the Converso bourgeoisie of Madrid, he eventually became Isabella's keeper of the royal household. Álvarez Gato wrote amorous, religious, and satirical verse. His love poetry, the best and most lyrical part of his output, includes many of the gallant trivialities typical of the period, but it also contains some of the subtle irony which gives it his personal stamp. In his religious poetry Álvarez Gato frequently used popular forms and refrains. During the last years of Henry IV's reign, the tone of his poetry underwent a radical change and through it he bitterly reproached the monarch for the calamities of his rule. Alvarez Gato's short treatises and letters on moral questions shed light on the attitudes and problems of the Spanish Conversos at the end of the 15th century. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. Artiles Rodriguez (ed.), Obras Completas de Juan Álvarez Gato (1928); J. Márquez Villanueva, Investigaciones sobre Juan Álvarez Gato (1960). (Kenneth R. Scholberg)