Álvaro de Cañizares belongs to the broad group of cancioneril poets for which barely any information is available. That is, he is one of the authors with works in the earliest songbooks, as his corpus, in the form it has survived to the present, consists of six texts, all of them in a single unique copy: four in the Cancionero de Baena and two in the Cancionero de Palacio. However, in spite of the exiguity of his preserved work, he was not just an occasional poet but a renowned figure among his peers. In this paper I aim to demonstrate the importance of this poet, placing him in a specific historical and poetic context in both the network of relationships he enters into with some of the leading poets of the time; and for his presence in the environment of the confidants of Juan II at various periods from the king’s early youth until late in his reign. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]