Juan Boscan is a significant Catalan lyric poet who was at the court of Charles V and was considered the best student of Siculo and Varini. The latter were teachers of Latin culture in the family of the Dukes of Alba. Subsequently, Juan Boscan himself became a mentor to the Duke of Alba and improved his excellent knowledge of Italian during numerous trips to Italy.
In 1526, the poet attended the marriage ceremony of Emperor Charles V with Princess Isabella of Portugal in Seville. From there, the entire motorcade moved to Granada with its gardens and palaces. Here, the acquaintance of Boscan with the Venetian ambassador, poet, philologist, and great connoisseur of the classic, Andrea Navagero, took place. He was a man of firm principles and solid beliefs. There was a conversation at the Venetian embassy of Granada, as a result of which Boscan started pursuing the goal of imitating Italian sonnets in Spanish. On the way home, Boscan wrote the famous letter to the Duchess of Soma, where he reproduced the dialogue with the Venetian ambassador. The latter suggested Boscan to try to apply in Spanish the techniques widely used by famous Italian poets in ballads and sonnets. Boscan wrote about this idea to his long-time close friend, the poet Garcilaso de la Vega, who was also inclined to try his pen in Italian meters. Then, the exercises of the two poets in the new versification and their mutual praise took place.
Thus, the letter declares the beginning of the implementation of Italian poetic forms into the Spanish ones. Boscan carefully thought over and correctly presented to the connoisseurs of Spanish poetry certain elements of Italian poetry, for example, the free line and the Italian royal octave. These became the favorite form of all the epic poets of Spain during the Renaissance. It might be concluded that the letter constitutes an explanation of a new lyrical style by quoting Navagero’s suggestion that was applied in practice further.