The literary point of interest here is based on the fact that the interior of the Spanish Governor's Palace contains two early portraits of Don Baltazar de Zuniga, Marques de Valero, who was born in Bejar, Spain, in 1659 and died in Madrid in 1727. During the early eighteenth century he served as Viceroy of Mexico and is credited with founding San Antonio de Bexar in 1718. He may have used the name "Bexar," or "Bejar," in memory of his brother, the Duke of Bejar, who had recently died fighting against the Turks to defend Budapest (Allen 12). Coincidentally, Miguel de Cervantes had dedicated Part One of Don Quixote (1605) to an earlier member of this same aristocratic Spanish family, Don Alonso de Zuniga y Sotomayor. The Dedication reads in part as follows:

To the Duke of Bejar

Marquis of Gibraleon, Count of Benalcazar and Banares, Viscount of La Puebla de Alcocer, Lord of the Towns of Capilla, Curiel, and Burguillos Confident of the courteous reception and honors that Your Excellency bestows on all sorts of books, as a prince so inclined to favor the arts, chiefly those which by their nobility do not submit to the service and bribery of the vulgar, I have decided to publish The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote de La Mancha in the shelter of Your Excellency's most illustrious name. (8)