Boabdilla still held Granada, oblivious of his engagement to surrender that city when his rival, El Zagal, should be conquered.[1] We need not here digress to rehearse the oft-told story of the siege of Granada, during which Moslem rivalled Christian in deeds of chivalry. Peter Martyr's letters in the _Opus Epistolarum_ recount these events. He shared to the full the exultation of the victors, but was not oblivious of the grief and humiliation of the vanquished whom he describes as weeping and lamenting upon the graves of their forefathers, with a choice between captivity and exile before their despairing eyes. He portrays his impressions upon entering with the victorious Christian host into the stately city. _Alhambrum, proh dii immortales! Qualem regiam, romane purpurate, unicam in orbe terrarum, crede_, he exclaims in his letter to Cardinal Arcimboldo of Milan. [Note 1: The Moorish power was at this time weakened by an internal dissension. El Zagal had succeeded his brother, Muley Abdul Hassan, who, at the time of his death ruled over Baza, Guadiz, Almeria, and other strongholds in the south-east, while his son Boabdil was proclaimed in Granada, thus dividing the kingdom against itself, at a moment when union was most essential to its preservation. Boabdil had accepted the protection of King Ferdinand and had even stipulated the surrender of Granada as the reward for his uncle's defeat. Consult Prescott's _Ferdinand and Isabella_.] Divers are the appreciations of the precise part played by Peter Martyr in the course of this war. He spent quite as much time with the Queen's court as he did at the front, and he himself advances but modest claims to war's laurels, writing rather as one who had missed his vocation amongst men whose profession was fighting. The career he sought did not lie in that direction. In later years writing to his friend Marliano, he observed: _De bello autem si consilium amici vis, bella gerant bellatores. Philosophis inhæreat lectionis et contemplationis studium_. Glorious as the date of Granada's capture might have been in Spanish history, it acquired world-wide significance from the decision given in favour of the project of Christopher Columbus which followed as a consequence of the Christian victory. Though he nowhere states the fact, Martyr must at this time[2] have known the Genoese suppliant for royal patronage. Talavera, confessor to the Queen, was the friend and protector of both Italians. [Note 2: Navarrete states that the two Italians had known one another intimately prior to the siege of Granada. _Coleccion de documentos ineditos_, tom. i., p. 68.]