The New International Encyclopædia/Mena, Juan de

MENA, mā′nȧ, Juan de (c.1411-56). A Spanish poet, born at Cordova. He studied at Salamanca and afterwards went to Rome. Here he became an admirer of the works of Dante and Petrarch, and from then continued to be influenced by them. He was secretary to King John II. of Castile, and Court historian. His principal work is El laberinto (1496), a poem modeled on the Divine Comedy, which is also called Las tres cientas, from the original number of its verses—300. It is an elaborate, tedious allegory.