The Route of Cervantes (2/2) 1580-1616

Cervantes lived in Lisbon sporadically in 1581, after that he went to Orán, he came back to Lisbon and, in 1582, he moved to Madrid. How he lived and what he did there remains something of a mystery. 

In the 1580s, King Philip II of Spain moved in to assert Spanish rule over Portugal. Over a century and a half later, in 1755, the Ribeira was destroyed in the Great Lisbon Earthquake. 

In 1584, not long after the birth of his biological daughter with Ana de Villafranca—an actress and the wife of a tavern owner—Cervantes traveled to Esquivias in the Castile-La Mancha region of Spain. 

There he married Catalina Palacios Salazar and settled down for a few years, from 1584 to 1587. “Without Esquivias, Don Quixote would not exist.” So wrote Cervantes' biographer Luis Astrana Marin, summarizing the special relationship Cervantes had with Esquivias. 

The full title of the author’s most famous work is The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha.

The printing of the first part of Cervantes’ novel La Galatea was completed in 1585 in the workshops of Juan Gracián. It was paid for by a bookseller from Madrid, Blas de Robles. The novel was a “pastoral,” a popular type of fiction.

Pastorals often included the romantic adventures of shepherds and other rural people, who were held up to be pure and simple. The novel was not a failure, but it didn’t make Cervantes famous either. 

La Galatea was printed in the workrooms of printer Juan de Gracián at No. 9 Calle Libreros. Today, a bank branch occupies that spot, but a plaque reminds visitors of the  historical importance of the site.

Hoping for patronage, he had dedicated the book to a local noble, but the noble did not respond. The author never bothered to write the sequel to the novel that he had promised.

Between 1587 and 1600, the most important writer of Spanish literature lived in Seville and other several places in Andalucia. 

 As tax collector for the Royal Navy, his job involved going from town to town and collecting grain, olive oil, and other commodities claimed by the armies for use in feeding the soldiers. 

Some accounting problems eventually landed Cervantes in debt. Though he constantly applied for new jobs, even some in the far away Americas, he could not quite make a living. At the time, failure to pay one’s debts was a crime, and, twice, Cervantes found himself in jail. 

At the end of 1597 he ended up in the Royal Jail of Seville, on Sierpe Street. There, he learned the language of the criminal underworld that he later went on to express in his works.

The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, Cervantes’ masterwork, ran some 664 pages. The bookseller Francisco de Robles bought the rights to sell the book, and despite hundreds of printing errors, the novel quickly sold out. 

Eventually, the novel became massively popular around the globe. Today, it is widely considered to be the single greatest work of Spanish literature, and one of the most important works of fiction in the world.

Don Quixote was printed at the Juan de la Cuesta printing house at No. 87 Atocha Street. Today, this is the home of the Cervantes Society of Madrid, founded in 1953 by Cervantes biographer Luis Astrana Marin. The plaque on the façade of the building shows the misguided knight Don Quixote and his servant Sancho Panza.

The first edition of Don Quixote included an enormous number of printing errors. Many readers assumed that Cervantes was responsible for these mistakes. In truth, the printing house had done a sloppy job of setting the movable type. 

In addition to this embarrassment, Cervantes had also signed away his rights to the novel. Its wild success brought him no money except for the original sum de Robles paid for the first printing.

He received the last rites, signed the dedication of Persiles, and three days later on April 22nd, he died. The following day he was buried in the Convent of the Barefoot Trinitarians in Madrid.

Cervantes’ funeral service was held in the The chapel at the Trinitarian convent, in the heart of the Literary Quarter. It was not just convenient to Cervantes’ home; his only daughter also served as a nun in its convent. 

Cervantes may have felt connected to this church for other reasons. The Trinitarian Order was the group that raised the ransom money that freed him from slavery in Algiers in 1580.

The exact location of Cervantes’ grave is not known. The chapel at the Trinitarian convent was rebuilt in the 17th century, all the graves from the site were moved, and many identifying markings were lost. 

But in 2015, researchers found a previously unknown crypt under the building containing the remains of several humans. Scientists hope that DNA tests will identify Cervantes’ remains among them, which is all the more difficult as we know Cervantes didn’t have any descendants...