Vicente Espinel

Vicente Gómez Martínez-Espinel
(Ronda, December 28, 1550 - Madrid, February 4, 1624)
Spanish writer and musician of the Siglo de Oro.

He is credited with the addition of the 5th string to the guitar and the creation of the modern poetic form of the décima, composed of ten octameters, named espinela in Spanish after him.

He studied at the University of Salamanca, where he adopted as his own his father's second surname, and later on at the universities of Granada and Alcalá. As a latinist , he translated to Spanish Horace's Epistola ad Pisones.

He lived an adventurous life, he was a prisoner of pirats at Argel and a soldier in Italy after being liberated. Afterwards, he moved to Madrid and took the vows in 1589.

Aunque se radicó en Madrid al ordenarse sacerdote en 1589, su vida anterior fue aventurera, habiendo sido prisionero de los piratas en Argel y, liberado por tropas de Génova, militar en Italia.

In 1618, the printer Juan de la Cuesta published Espinel's picaresque novel Relaciones de la vida del escudero Marcos de Obregón. This writings, with several autobiographical details, was printed in Frace the same year and inspired later Lesage's Gil Blas de Santillana. He also published his Assorted rhymes in 1591.

Lope de Vega, who referred to Espinel as his teacher, dedicated him El caballero de Illescas (1602). Espinel also befriended Cervantes, Góngora (whose poetry he helped to publish) and Quevedo. As his friends, he was a member of congregation Esclavos del Santísimo Sacramento. At the moment of his death, he was the chaplain at Madrid, and also the music teacher, of the Plasencia bishop.

Sources

• Enciclopedia Libre Universal - Vicente Espinel (in Spanish)