Miguel de Cervantes: a life of adventure

Portrait of the writer Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, made by Jauregui (Portrait property of the Royal Academy).

Opening of the rebuilt “House of Cervantes” in the heart of the old Jewish quarter, in the Calle Mayor, that holds the Cervantine Museum and Library. The house has two floors, with a central court and a small garden in the main façade, where many of the plants Cervantes mentions in his books will be grown.

Visitors wait for their turn to enter in the birthplace house of Cervantes museum, where is found one of the best collection of editions of the Quixote in different languages, placed in the Calle Mayor of the Madrid town of Alcalá de Henares

Alcalá de Henares (Madrid) 1950s.- Miguel de Cervantes study in the Birthplace House Museum in Alcalá de Henares.

A Castilian armchair, a brazier and an oil lamp on a desk, are some of the furniture and accessories that are used to recreate the atmosphere of the Sala Noble of a home in the 16th and 17th century, in the Cervantes Birthplace House Museum. The Cervantine museum is in the building where some studies say was born the famous writer and in it’s rooms the atmosphere and daily life of the Spanish Golden Age.

Baptism record of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra.

View of the Church of Santa María where Miguel de Cervantes was baptized , that has been destroyed during the civil war (Undated 1940s).

View of the front court of a typical house of the 16th century of nobleman Don Alonso Quijada Salazar, uncle of Catalina de Palacios, Cervantes wife, who handed them over the upper floor when they married. Esquivias (Toledo) 1933.

View of hall and the wooden stairs heading to the upper floor, of a typical house of the 16th century of nobleman Don Alonso Quijada Salazar, uncle of Catalina de Palacios, Cervantes wife, who handed them over the upper floor when they married.

Baptismal certificate of Miguel de Cervantes.

Court of the house of Miguel de Cervantes in Valladolid.

Toledo, 1930s.- Central court of the Posada de la Sangre, of the 16th century. The court of rectangular shape is surrounded by galleries with balustrades, held by wooden pillars in the upper floor and by stone columns in the lower floor; around it the rooms of the inn are ordered. In this place, that was formerly known as the “El Mesón de El Sevillano”, Miguel de Cervantes wrote his novel “The Illustrious Kitchen Maid”.

Argel, May 1983.- Entry to the cave of Cervantes. View of the Cervantes grotto, cave where the Spanish author hid for a while in 1577 during a failed evasion attempt.

Plaque in the Cervantes street in Argel, where is the cave where the author hid in 1577 during a failed evasion attempt to escape from the corsairs that kept him prisoner since 1575 and that wouldn’t free him until 1580 when a payment of 500 golden ducats was made.

One of the eleven unique autographs of Cervantes that are kept in the National Library in Madrid, that also includes four counterfeit signatures and a study of the writing of the author from Alcalá de Henares.

Façade of the house where writer Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra died on April the 23rd 1616 in Madrid.

Miguel de Cervantes died on April 22, 1916 and was buried in the church of the Madrid convent of the Trinitarias Descalzas nuns of San Ildefonso. However, successive reforms carried out in the temple, forced to move his tomb and his remains were lost. Following an investigation, they were found side by side in an ossuary in 2015. In the church of San Ildefonso the convent of the Trinitarians of Madrid is erected a plaque in his honor. Cervantes was devoted to the Trinitarians because they paid much ransom demanded by the Barbary pirates in Algiers for the freedom of his brother and his. This order, founded in the late twelfth century, had as one of its functions the release of Christian captives in North Africa by paying ransoms.

Nearly 400 years after his death on April 23rd 1616, they are attempting to locate the mortal remains of Cervantes with a georadar in the Convent of the Trinitarias of Madrid where he asked to be buried. In the image, the façade of the Convent of the Trinitarias of Madrid, in the street Lope de Vega 18.

The technicians that search for Miguel de Cervantes in the church of Madrid of the Trinitarias, where it is believed he’s buried, begin today the forensic and anthropological works to find his bone remains among thirty niche and several tombs recently discovered.

Moment of the placing of the remains of the writer Miguel de Cervantes who now rest in the new monument erected in his honor in the church of San Idelfonso of the convent of the Trinitarias of Madrid, that were found in march by a team of researchers and that has been inaugurated today. In its visible part, the sepulcher has a stone plaque over a foundation of granite that is placed in the left of the door to the church, has a consideration of Cultural Interest Good. Beyond it, in the inside, there are three urns placed in a niche that keep the remains of the now famous reduction 32 of the crypt of the old church, where a team of researchers, archeologists and historians leaded by Francisco Etxeberria found the remains of the writer.

Detail of the facade of the Convent of the Trinitarians of Madrid.