By 1582 Cervantes was engaged in various literary pursuits, and his marriage to Catalina de Palacios gave rise to the first literary work to bring him public notice. Giovanni Paisiello: Don Chisciotte della Mancia (Sergio Rocchi, tenor Maurizio Leoni, baritone Paolo Quagliata, soprano Patrizia Macrelli, soprano Giacomo Gandaglia, tenor Davide Paltretti, baritone Elena Bertocchi, soprano Ilaria Italia, soprano Angela Albanesi, soprano Piacenza Philharmonic Orchestra Valentino Metti, cond.)ĭon Quixote goes mad from his reading of books of chivalryĭuring his time in captivity, Cervantes wrote the “Captive’s Tale” in Don Quixote and two Algerian plays, El trato de Argel (“The Traffic of Algiers”) and Los baños de Argel (“The Prisons of Algiers”). On 7 October 1571, at the battle of Lepanto, Cervantes fought in the center of the conflict and received two gunshot wounds in his chest, and a third maimed his left hand for the rest of his life, as he later remarked, “for the greater glory of the right.” Once he had recovered, Barbary pirates captured the ship taking him home, and “Cervantes was sold into slavery in Algiers.” Recognized as a man of importance, Cervantes made several attempts to escape, but he was only ransomed in 1580. Once in Italy, Cervantes served in the household of Cardinal Giulio Acquaviva, and by 1570 he enlisted with a Spanish regiment stationed in Naples.

In the same year, Cervantes left for Rome, possibly because a warrant for his arrest had been issued that condemned him in absence to having his right hand cut off and to be exiled from the capital for ten years for wounding a man.

We do know, however, that he published his first poem, on the death of Philipp II’s third wife, Isabel de Valois, at the age of twenty-one. When his father fell on hard times, the family moved from town to town and the aspiring author might have studied under the Jesuits. His father was a barber-surgeon who set bones, performed bloodlettings, and attended lesser medical needs. Miguel de Cervantes was probably born on 29 September 1547 in Alcalá de Henares, in the Community of Madrid.

Don quixote miguel de cervantes