His sculptures are at the highest range of original and effective delineation in antiquity.
The earliest delineation of the description has already been referred to as the AngloSaxon map of the world.
His delineation of Abyssinia, though unduly spread over a wide area, is indeed wonderfully correct.
His principal works are El Heroe (1630), which describes in apophthegmatic phrases the qualities of the ideal man; the Arte de ingenio, tratado de la Agudeza (1642), republished six years afterwards under the title of Agudeza, y arte de ingenio (1648), a system of rhetoric in which the principles of conceptismo as opposed to culteranismo are inculcated; El Discreto (1645), a delineation of the typical courtier; El Oraculo manual y arte de prudencia (1647), a system of rules for the conduct of life; and El Criticon (1651-1653-1657), an ingenious philosophical allegory of human existence.
Many of the local maps, too, were excellent specimens of cartography, but when we follow any cartographer of the period into regions the successful delineation of which depended upon an intelligent interpretation of itineraries, and of information collected by recent travellers, they are generally found to fail utterly.