The Secret Diaries of Juan Luis Vives

The book is, indeed, very well written and shows great attention to historical accuracy. It is, as stated, mainly a series of diary entries, ba3sed on the history of the time, with some narrative as welI. I enjoyed the book, it was very good.

The Secret Diaries of Juan Luis Vives is biographical fiction at its best. The actual people "speaking"are believable, unlike dialogue spoken on recent television series. It begins in the present when an electrician finds a box in a wall and gives it to a professor. It then takes the professor a year to research the items and especially the coded diary within. We meet Juan in 1522 when he is given a diary by a untrustworthy character. Juan decides to write anyway using codes and ancient tongues. Vives was born in Valencia Spain to Jewish Converso parents and flees from there at the age of 17. He is educated in Paris and then taught in Bruges, Flanders. He establishes relationships with Erasmus and Thomas Moore and marries Marguerite Valldaura, another secret Jew. He then goes to England and it is here much of his writing begins. He becomes a tutor to the Princess Mary and becomes involved with the great divorce all the while trying to find a safe place for Jews to live. I would like to ask the author if a confession made by the Spanish Queen Catherine of England is from his imagination to propel the story or if he really has any documentation as it is rather shocking. I am now going to have to find Vives works in translation.

The Secret Diaries of Juan Luis Vives is an excellent book detailing the liife of the great philosopher and humanist who ended up tutoring Princess Mary, the daughter of King Henry VIII and many others. Juan was born in Valencia, Spain leaving there at the age of 17 at the beginning of the Inquisition or Auto da Fe where all Jews and Moslems, even those who had converted to Catholicism were being persecuted and many were being killled. He went to Paris to continue his education under a great philosopher and humanist Erasmus and then went to Flander to teach himself. A student of his gifted him one day with a diary, in which he wrote in code in a mixture of Spanish, Arabic and Latin his innermost thoughts and day to day experiences. One day he happens to meet the great Thomas More and befriends him and later through More's encouragement comes to England and is chosen to become tutor to Princess Mary, daughter of King Henry VIII and Queen Katherine. All the while he must keep up a dual identity as a Catholic while secretly in his heart remaining a Jew. Only his always hidden diary holds the secrets of his dual life. Eventually when he does not agree with the King over his decision to divorce Katherine over the consanguinity issue, hi is removed as her tutor and eventually returns to Flanders to his Jewish wife and his now released from Spain's persecution his sister Beatriz and he finally finds peace. My thanks to Net Galley and Telllwell publishers for giving me the pleasure of reading this immensely informative and emotional diary.

This is the period we as readers are interested in - Vives time in Bruges, Louvain and England - the period in which he wrote his diaries, and of his ongoing battles with his personal and religious identities - he was the son of coversos and was born into Christianity - wherein he spent much time trying to reconcile these two facets of his identity, both privately and publicly.

Vives is portrayed as a tortured soul, pouring out his religious frustrations onto the pages of his (not so secret) diary. He is a deeply flawed man, walking a political tightrope who is clearly out of his depth, and somewhat naive in his approach to the machinations of those around him. The reader is also left wondering whether Vives is mourning not only the loss of his family (at the hands of the Inquisition) but also his religious identity - is he a Jew or Christian?

This is a fascinating and well researched work into a man who I would not hesitate to say is barely known. Though a work of fiction, author Tim Darcy Ellis peppers the diary pages with real historical figures and events, giving that authenticity that readers love. I would have liked to have known more about Vives actions in England toward bringing about an open Jewish settlement, however I am guessing documentation on this aspect is few and far between. Overall, an enjoyable read on a less known figure.

Four stars as this made me investigate the life of Juan Luis Vives further.

The Secret Diaries of Juan Luis Vives captured my attention in part because of the voyeuristic nature of the storytelling. Focusing on a tumultuous time of persecution of Jews during the Inquisition, the book investigates a time of history I was less well acquainted with but feel a need to discover more about. Vives' voice is compelling and though it took me longer to read than I would have expected, I entirely attribute this to my aversion to e-reading rather than the story itself. Ellis captures the intense balancing act Vives endured remarkably well.

This book was so much fun to read. It was so descriptive, which made it super easy to picture the world and the people described. I loved reading about someone in the Tudor era that advocated for women's rights for education and other teachings.