The origins of a genius
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, fourth son of Rodrigo de Cervantes, a modest bleeding surgeon[1], and Leonor de Cortinas, was born into a family of seven siblings and was baptized[2] in Alcalá de Henares (Madrid, Spain) on the 9th of October 1547[3]. It is likely that he was born on September 29, St. Michael’s Day.
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bleeding surgeon: antecedent of the nurse or practitioner: he performed cures and small interventions, and also removed teeth.
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baptize: administer the sacrament of baptism to someone. Baptism: religious ceremony of many Christian churches that is administered by pouring water on the head or by impression, which imprints the character of Christian on the person who receives it.
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For the dates we follow the Gregorian calendar, established in Europe by Pope Gregory XIII in the 16th century.
Constant changes in his life
In 1551, the whole family moved to Valladolid, although they were not lucky, as his father was imprisoned for debts for several months and his assets were seized.
As his father had to look for work to feed his seven children, Cervantes spent his entire childhood and early youth in different cities. Nothing certain is known about the first twenty years of his life, and more especially, about his studies, which, of course, were not university.
It seems that he attended them in Valladolid, Córdoba or Seville, probably in the Society of Jesus [5]. In fact, since in one of his novels, Cervantes makes a description of a Jesuit school that seems like an evocation of his years as a student.
5. Company of Jesus: religious order of regular clerics of the Catholic Church founded in 1534 by the Spanish Ignatius of Loyola. Its members are called Jesuits.
His early writings
In 1566, the Cervantes family settled in Madrid, and Miguel studied with the professor of Grammar Juan López de Hoyos, who in 1569 published a book in which he included three poems by Cervantes that constitute the first known literary manifestation of this author.
The beginning of his great adventure
In 1569 Cervantes arrived in Rome fleeing Spain for having injured a man, for which he had been condemned in absentia to have his right hand publicly cut off and to be banished from the kingdom for ten years.
There he enters the service of Cardinal[6] Giulio Acquaviva. The influence of Renaissance[7] Italy is clear both in some genres that he writes (the Exemplary Novels, for example) and in the admiration that the characters in some of his works express for this country. Cervantes has especially good memories of his stay in Naples, where he, apparently, was introduced to various literary circles.
6. Cardinal: each of the superiors of the Catholic Church who make up the Pope’s advisory college and form the conclave for his election.
7. Renaissance: pertaining to the Renaissance, a European artistic movement that began in the mid-15th century, characterized by enthusiasm for the study of classical Greek and Latin antiquity.
The battle of Lepanto
But he soon leaves Acquaviva to go as a soldier in the company [8] of Captain Diego de Urbina, where his brother Rodrigo was already there. They embarked on the galley[9] Marquesa, which took part in the battle of Lepanto against the Turks (who wanted to dominate the entire Mediterranean), forming part of the Invincible Armada commanded by Don Juan of Austria[10].
Miguel de Cervantes, sick on board his galley, asked, when the moment of battle arrived, for the position of greatest danger, and was assigned to head twelve soldiers. He fought bravely, and received two harquebus shot, one in the chest and another in the left hand, which he could no longer use in his life; hence the nickname of El manco de Lepanto, which remained for posterity.
The wounds must not have been very serious, since Cervantes, once healed, returned to being a soldier and participated in other military actions.
8. Company: an infantry, engineer, or service unit, usually commanded by a captain.
9. Galley: a sailing and rowing vessel.
10. Half-brother of king Felipe II.
A long five-year captivity
After all his exploits, Cervantes decided to return to Spain from Naples (Italy) to claim the reward for his services. He embarked on the galley Sol, carrying with him letters of recommendation from Don Juan of Austria. On September 26, 1575, already off the northeast coast of Spain, they encountered a Turkish fleet, which, after a battle, took prisoners, among them Miguel de Cervantes and his brother Rodrigo.
Taken to Algiers, in North Africa, our writer was assigned as a slave to the Greek renegade[11] Dali Mamí, who, upon finding the letters of recommendation, believed Cervantes to be a person of high rank from whom a good ransom could be obtained.
Cervantes endured five years of captivity, which left a profound mark on his work, especially in his comedies set in Algiers (The Dealings of Algiers and The Baths of Algiers), as well as in the story of the Captive, interspersed in the first part of Don Quixote.
11. renegade: a person who has voluntarily abandoned their religion or beliefs.
Several escape attempts
The five years of captivity in Algiers were a very tough test for Cervantes, who kept his spirit strong at all times, allowing him to endure all kinds of hardships and punishments, and extraordinary heroism.
He tried to escape four times, twice by land and twice by sea, and to avoid further harm to his fellow captives, he took responsibility for everything before his enemies and preferred torture rather than denouncing them.
The first escape attempt failed because the moor[12] who had to guide Cervantes and his companions to Oran (a city in North Africa, which was then Spanish, located west of Algiers) abandoned them on the first day, and the captives They were forced to return to Algiers, where they were chained and guarded more closely than before.
12. moor: native of North Africa.
To free him from captivity in Algiers, his family sold everything at a price. His mother, Leonor Cortinas, gave herself body and soul to get money. She pawned the dowries[13] of her daughters, she turned to friends, she posed as a widow in order to request a loan of 60 ducats in the hope of rescuing her two sons, but this money, which arrived in Algiers two years later, did not It was enough to rescue both of them, and Miguel preferred that his brother, Rodrigo, be released, who returned to Spain.
His brother’s help
But Rodrigo had a plan drawn up by Miguel to free him and fourteen or fifteen other captives: Cervantes met with his companions in a hidden cave waiting for the arrival of a Spanish galley that was to pick them up.
13. dowry: set of assets and rights contributed by the woman to the marriage.
The galley arrived and tried to approach the beach twice, but she was captured, and the captives hidden in the cave were discovered, due to the betrayal of one of them, who denounced the entire plan.
Cervantes claimed full responsibility for the unfortunate adventure and entered Algiers on foot, tied up and pursued by the insults of the populace. The king of Algiers, Azan Pasha, locked him in prison loaded with chains, where he remained for five months.
The third escape attempt was prepared by Cervantes in the hope of reaching Oran by land. He sent a Moor he trusted there with letters for the general of that city, but the messenger was captured and executed, and the letters were read; They showed that the person who had plotted everything was Cervantes, who was sentenced to receive two thousand blows.
This inhuman sentence, which would have killed him, was not carried out because many interceded for him.
He tries again
The fourth escape attempt, in November 1579, was made possible thanks to a sum of cash given by a Spanish merchant who was in Algiers, with which Cervantes bought a frigate[14] capable of carrying sixty Christian captives.
14. frigate: a three-masted warship.
When everything was ready, one of those who were to be released betrayed the entire plan to Hazan Pasha, who had a reputation for vengeance and cruelty.
However, Cervantes was not sentenced to death, but was transferred to a more rigorous prison in the palace of Hazan Pasha, who decided to take him to Constantinople (present-day Istanbul), where escape would be almost impossible. Cervantes, once again, assumed full responsibility for the escape attempt.
The trinitarian fathers
During the captivity, Cervantes’ father, Don Rodrigo, died, and his widow, Doña Leonor de Cortinas, continued her work to free her son, helped by her daughter Doña Andrea and by the religious order of the Holy Trinity.
In Spain, the captivity in Algiers was a national problem. Already in the century XII the Order of the Holy Trinity had been founded for the rescue of captives. With its effective action, the liberations achieved reached nine hundred thousand. On the other hand, in the 13th century the Order of Our Lady was born in Barcelona.
Lady of Mercy with the same purpose. Between Trinitarios and Mercedarios there was a great rivalry. The means of obtaining the sums necessary to pay the ransoms demanded were donations from wealthy people.
In May 1580, the Trinitarian fathers arrived in Algiers, who tried to rescue Cervantes, but they asked for 500 escudos[15] for him, and the religious only had 300. So they had to collect the missing amount from Christian merchants, which They managed to reunite when Cervantes was already chained in one of the galleys bound for Constantinople.
Finally, free!
As the ship was about to set sail, something unexpected happened: a friar named Juan Gil had learned that Miguel was going to be transferred. Then he boarded the ship and told the pirates that he was willing to pay the ransom they demanded for the prisoner’s freedom. The pirates accepted the money, removed the heavy chains from Miguel, and thus he was set free
He is rescued on September 19, 1580, at the price of 500 ducats, by the Trinitarian fathers. In November or December he was already in Madrid hugging his heartbroken family.
15. escudo: coin that circulated in Spain during various periods between the 16th and 19th centuries.
Disappointing return to Spain
After being released from captivity in Algiers, Cervantes attempted to integrate into society by asserting his war merits for having participated in the battle of Lepanto.
In May 1581 he moved to Portugal to organize his life and pay the debts that his family had incurred to rescue him. There he received fifty ducats and was entrusted with a secret mission in Oran because they saw that he knew the customs of North Africa.
When he finished this mission, he returned to Madrid at the end of the year. In February 1582 he requested a job that had become vacant in the Indies [16], but it was not granted.
16. Political entities formed in Spanish America legally incorporated into the Crown of Castile following the Spanish discovery and conquest of America.
Adapted from Martín de Riquer, Cervantes and Don Quixote.
