Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/86089
Title: Prologue : Cervantes in Malta
Authors: Vassallo, Carmel
Keywords: Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de, 1547-1616 -- Influence
Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de, 1547-1616. Don Quixote -- Criticism and interpretation
Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de, 1547-1616 -- Travel
Issue Date: 2020
Publisher: Malta University Press
Citation: Vassallo, C. (2020). Prologue : Cervantes in Malta. In C. Vassallo (Ed.), Cervantes in Malta (pp. xi-xxiv). Msida: Malta University Press.
Abstract: In 1573 Miguel de Cervantes was in Malta. In later life he would become world-famous for his Don Quixote but in that year he was serving as a rank-and-file soldier at the orders of Captain Manuel Ponce de León, commander of one of two companies of Spanish soldiers with a total strength of 317 men stationed on the island. The companies were units of the Tercio of Don Lope de Figueroa, under the overall command of Don Juan de Austria, the victor of Lepanto. The island had undergone a siege of epic proportions just eight years earlier and after the devastation of war came not only the reconstruction of what had been destroyed but also the commencement of the building of a brand-new city. The latter became the capital on 18 March 1571 when Grand Master Pierre de Monte moved from his seat at Fort St Angelo in Birgu to the Grandmaster’s Palace in Valletta. Nevertheless, despite the considerable resources being poured in from all over Europe and the frantic pace of construction, the consolidation of the island’s defenses was still very much work-in-progress and the Ottoman threat was ever-present.
URI: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/86089
ISBN: 9789990944846
Appears in Collections:Melitensia Works - ERCWHMlt

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