Vicente Espinel

Vicente Gómez Martínez-Espinel (; 28 December 15504 February 1624) was a Spanish writer and musician of the Siglo de Oro. He is credited with the creation of the modern poetic form of the décima, composed of ten octameters, named espinela in Spanish after him. Biography Espinel was born in Ronda. 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. After leaving university, he had an adventurous life as a soldier, serving in Flanders and elsewhere. He was a prisoner of pirates at Argel and a soldier in Italy after being liberated, and returned to Spain about 1584. Afterwards, he moved to Madrid and took holy orders in 1589. Four years later he became chaplain at Ronda, but absented himself from his living. Still, his musical skill obtained for him the post of choirmaster at Plasencia. His (Assorted Rhymes), produced in 1591, showed a caustic wit. Later, in 1618, the printer Juan de la Cuesta published Espinel’s picaresque novel , for which he is best known. This book, with several autobiographical details, was p