Azurara confesses that he felt at first somewhat diffident of putting pen to paper, so marvellous seemed the deeds he was called on to relate; and he would never have persevered with his task had he learnt them on hearsay evidence, or from the mouths of one or two witnesses; but he found their truth confirmed on a perusal of the official reports sent to the King from Ceuta, and this encouraged him to proceed. He appears to have been assisted in his task by D. Pedro himself during his lifetime,[49] and to have written out the book twice, while his impartiality and the care he took to arrive at the truth are everywhere visible.[50] Of course he cannot abstain altogether from citations, and these have an interest as showing the measure of his literary knowledge: witness his mention of Dante's _Divina Commedia_, Cinó da Pistoia and _The Book of Amadis_, which he ascribes to "Vasco Lobeira, who lived in the time of D. Fernando."[51] [Footnote 49: _Ibid._, ch. 64.] [Footnote 50: _Chronica do Conde D. Pedro de Menezes_, chs. 2 and 3. The end of ch. 3 deserves perusal, for it shows how fully Azurara realized the difficulties of an historian's task.] [Footnote 51: _Ibid._, ch. 63. This is the first reference in all literature to the authorship of the famous romance.] For three years contemporary records are silent respecting the Chronicler, and it is not until 1466 that he comes before us again. On June 11th of that year, D. Pedro,[52] King of Aragon, son of him who was Regent in the minority of Affonso V, and fell at Alfarrobeira, wrote Azurara a short but familiar autograph letter, which affords another proof of the intimate relations that existed between the Chronicler and the great personages of the age. In this letter, which is in response to one sent by Azurara, D. Pedro addresses him as "friend", refers to his "old kindness and sweet nature", and goes on to accept his offer to keep him informed of the progress of events in Portugal. He then takes the Chronicler into his confidence, and complains of the difficulties of his position as King of Aragon--difficulties which were aggravated by an illness that ended in his death less than a month after he had penned this epistle.[53] [Footnote 52: D. Pedro, _fils_, was a distinguished poet, and to him the Marquis of Santillana addressed that famous letter which may be described as a history of poetry in the Peninsula. It is transcribed _in extenso_ by Dr. Theophilo Braga, in his _Poetas Palacianos_, pp. 161-169. Porto, 1871.]