Vida de Miguel de Cervantes (Life of Miguel de Cervantes) (Biblioteca Nacional de España) [249]

The search for new documents on Cervantes following the publication of Martín Fernández de Navarrete’s biography became an obsession. Collections of records such as those compiled by José María Asensio (11 documents), Cristóbal Pérez Pastor (161) Francisco Rodríguez Marín (more than 122) and José de la Torre y del Cerro (40)… form the basis of a good many of today’s biographies. Jerónimo Morán incorporated 17 new documents into his biography of Cervantes, nearly all of them from the Archivo General de Simancas. They include the Provisión de los alcaldes de Casa y Corte mandando prender a Miguel Cervantes condenado en rebeldía por haber herido a Antonio Segura datado en Madrid el 15 de septiembre de 1569, que había sido enviado a la Real Academia de la Historia en 1840, que no lo tuvo en cuenta porque consideraban que un duelo podía “manchar” el honor de Cervantes (Provision of the royal judges ordering the arrest of Miguel Cervantes convicted in absentia of wounding Antonio Segura in Madrid on 15 September 1569, which had been sent to the Royal Academy of History in 1840 and which was not taken into account because it was considered that a duel could “tarnish” Cervantes’s honour).

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