Garcilaso de la Vega (poet)

Garcilaso de la Vega, KOS (c. 1501 – 14 October 1536) was a Spanish soldier and poet. Although not the first or the only one to do so, he was the most influential poet to introduce Italian Renaissance verse forms, poetic techniques, and themes to Spain.

He was well known in both poetic and military circles during his lifetime, representative of the contemporaneous motif of las armas y las letras, and his poetry has continued to be popular without interruption until the present. His poetry was published posthumously by Juan Boscán in 1543, and it has been the subject of several annotated editions, the first and most famous of which appeared in 1574.