The historical summaries, pious dissertations and miscellaneous writings are of secondary interest. The _Libro del caballero et del escudero_ is on another plane; it is no doubt suggested by Lull's _Libre del orde de cavalleria_, but the points of resemblance have been exaggerated; the morbid mysticism of Lull is rejected, and the carefully finished style justifies the special pride which the author took in this performance. The influence of Lull's Blanquerna is likewise visible in the _Libro de los estados_; but there are marked divergences of substance which go to prove Don Juan Manuel's acquaintance with some version (not yet identified) of the Barlaam and Josaphat legend. Nothing is more striking than the curious and varied erudition of the turbulent prince who weaves his personal experiences with historical or legendary incidents, with reminiscences of Aesop and Phaedrus, with the _Disciplina clericalis_, with _Kalilah and Dimnah_, with countless Oriental traditions, and with all the material of anecdotic literature which he embodies in the _Libro de patronio_, best known by the title of _El Conde Lucanor_ (the name Lucanor being taken from the prose _Tristan_). This work (also entitled the _Libro de enxemplos_) was first printed by Gonzalo Argote de Molina at Seville in 1575, and it revealed Don Juan Manuel as a master in the art of prose composition, and as the predecessor of Boccaccio in the province of romantic narrative. The _Cento novelle antiche_ are earlier in date, but these anonymous tales, derived from popular stories diffused throughout the world, lack the personal character which Don Juan lends to all he touches. They are simple, unadorned variants of folk-lore items; _El Conde Lucanor_ is essentially the production of a conscious artist, deliberative and selective in his methods. Don Juan Manuel has not Boccaccio's festive fancy nor his constructive skill; he is too persistently didactic and concerned to point a moral; but he excels in knowledge of human nature, in the faculty of ironical presentation, in tolerant wisdom and in luminous conciseness. He naturalizes the Eastern apologue in Spain, and by the laconic picturesqueness of his expression imports a new quality into Spanish prose which attains its full development in the hands of Juan de Valdés and Cervantes. Some of his themes are utilized for dramatic purposes by Lope de Vega in _La Pobreza estimada_, by Ruiz de Alarcón in _La Prueba de las promesas_, by Calderón in _La Vida es sueño_, and by Cañizares in _Don Juan de Espina en Milán_: there is an evident, though remote, relation between the tale of the _mancebo que casó con una mujer muy fuerte y muy brava_ and _The Taming of the Shrew_; and a more direct connexion exists between some of Don Juan Manuel's _enxemplos_ and some of Anderson's fairy tales.