El cardenal Espinosa y Mateo Vázquez de Leca: su influencia en la actividad teatral de Miguel de Cervantes

When Cervantes returned from his captivity in Algiers, he began a prolific period as a theatrical playwright. It was then, between 1581 and 1591, that he wrote numerous comedies, tragedies, and sacramental autos. Cervantes’s theatrical training, however, is a mystery. He only remembers his youthful attendance of theatrical performances by Lope de Rueda, but he does not write anything about the Italian Commedia dell’arte, for example. In this article, I propose to study the influence of the ‘confessional’ politics of Cardinal Espinosa and Mateo Vázquez (1565-1591) on the theatrical conception of Miguel de Cervantes, as well as the influence of Juan López de Hoyos and Alonso Getino de Guzmán on his theatrical apprenticeship.