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The academia literaria ('literary academy') was a literary tertulia popular during Spain's Golden Age (Siglo de Oro) of literature and the arts, from the early sixteenth century to the late seventeenth century (c. 1500 – 1681), and especially during the reign of the Spanish Habsburgs and, in particular, that of King Philip II (1556–1598), a significant patron of Spanish art and culture. By the seventeenth century, these literary academies had become "one of the most prominent features of literary life... in Spain", and many leading men of letters, such as Lope de Vega, Luis de Góngora, Luis Vélez de Guevara and Francisco de Quevedo would be members of more than one academia.

Many sought to make their voices heard in the literary gatherings frequented by poets and artists for the amusement and entertainment of nobles and patrons: the academia literaria. Nobles frequently attended these gatherings, with one often assuming the role of Academy president, while a distinguished literary figure took on the position of "secretary." Membership in some academies could require certain qualifications, such as having published multiple works, or just one if it was a heroic poem, though attendance itself did not have such restrictions.

At the end of the first part of Don Quixote (1605), Miguel de Cervantes refers to the 'Academia de Argamasilla', in "a place in La Mancha". In all likelihood there was no such academia, but Cervantes' experience of these literary gatherings led him to make derisive reference to a tertulia of people from La Mancha. He also makes more general or specific references to the academias in other, later works, including in "Rinconete y Cortadillo" (Novelas Ejemplares, 1611). Moreover, according to Francisco Márquez Villanueva, Cervantes' Viaje del Parnaso (1614) is a "monumental sarcastic takedown on the pompous aspirations of the academies".

Each gathering would close with a vejamen (lampoon), a satirical piece of prose that was "an integral part of any academy session".

Notable academias in Spain

• Academia Imitatoria (Madrid, 1584 or c. 1590): Madrid's first academia literaria was mentioned by Juan Rufo in 1596 as imitating the famous Italian academias. Most likely a member of it himself, Cervantes mentions it in his "The Dialogue of the Dogs" (Novelas ejemplares, 1613) as Academia de los Imitadores and again, this time indirectly, in the second part of Don Quixote (1615). Lupercio Leonardo de Argensola, a close friend of Cervantes' was also a member.

• Academia de los Nocturnos (Valencia, 4 October 1591 – April 1594): Its ten founding members were Bernardo Catalán (Silencio), Hernando Pretel (Sueño), Gaspar Aguilar (Sombra), Francisco Pacheco (Fiel), Fabián de Cucaló (Horror), Maximiliano Oscuridad (Matías Fajardo) (Temeridad), Francisco D'Esplugues (Descuido), Francisco Agustin Tarrega (Miedo), Miguel Beneyto (Sosiego) and Gaspar de Villalón (Tinieblas). Another forty-five members would join over the course of this academy's existence, including Guillen de Castro (Secreto), Pelegrín Cathalán (Cuydado), Juan Andrés Núñez (Lucero), Hernando de Balda (Cometa), Estacio Gironella, Evaristo Mont, Andrés Rey de Artieda (Cautela), Jaime Orts (Tristeza), Jerónimo de Virués (Estudio), Guillem Belvis, Gaspar Gracián (Peligro), Manuel Ledesma (Recogimiento), Gaspar Mercader (Relámpago), Juan López Maldonado (Sincero) Tomás Cerdán de Tallada (Trueno), Juan Fenollet (Temeroso), Escolano (Luz), and Matías Fajardo (Oscuridad). The academy held 88 weekly sessions over its three years of existence, during which its members submitted 805 works in verse and 88 works in prose.

• Academia de los Humildes de Villamanta (21 January 1592): Members included Lupercio Leonardo de Argensola.

• Academia de Ochoa (Seville, c. 1598): Founded by Juan de Ochoa, its members included Cervantes and Lope, who was received by this academia in 1598. Cervantes coincided there with Mateo Alemán, Alonso Álvarez de Soria and Luis Vélez de Guevara.

• Academia Saldaña, Academia de Madrid or Academia Castellana (Madrid): Refers to two academias founded by Diego de Sandoval y Rojas, 9th Count of Saldaña, the son of the powerful Duke of Lerma, on two occasions; 1604 and 19 November 1611, although another source states that the academy's first session was held on 15 April 1612, with an inaugural speech by Vélez de Guevara. Its members included Góngora, Quevedo, Lope, Cervantes, and Luis Vélez de Guevara, secretary to the Count. Among the sources that refer to Cervantes having attending Saldaña's academia is a letter by Lope to the Duke of Sessa, dated 2 March 1612, in which he comments on having had to borrow Cervantes' spectacles ("... which looked like badly fried eggs...") in order to read his own verse at that event, which he refers to, at that time, as having taken place at the "academia de Parnaso", although it would later also be known as the Academia Selvaje.
  Lope himself was the Secretary, albeit for only two weeks, due to the difficulties the role entailed. Other attendees, either as men of letters themselves or as patrons of the Arts, included Andrés de Claramonte, the Duke of Pastrana, Francisco de Borja (Prince Esquilache), Count of Lemos, the Count of Cantillana, Diego Duque de Estrada, and the Count-Duke of Olivares.
  Cervantes' Novelas Ejemplares (1611), was dedicated to Pedro Fernández de Castro, Count of Lemos, one of the regular attendees of this academia. Lemos, while viceroy of Naples had been a patron of the Accademia degli Oziosi created there in 1611. Other works Cervantes dedicated to Lemos include the second part of Don Quixote (1615), Persiles, completed just days before he died. In January 1612, Lope informed Sessa that the Academy was still being held and, although he no longer attended, he still sent, "always", a sonnet dedicated to the Virgin. The academia finally broke up due to the animosity between two opposing factions following a violent row between Pedro Soto de Rojas and Luis Vélez de Guevara. Many of its members then joined the Academia de Parnaso.

• Congregación del Santísimo Sacramento (Madrid, c. 1606): Founded by the Archbishop of Toledo, Bernardo de Sandoval and the Duke of Lerma, its members included Vicente Espinel, Quevedo, Alonso Jerónimo de Salas Barbadillo, Luis Vélez de Guevara and Cervantes, all of whom also attended the Academia de Saldaña.

• Academia de Pítima (full name: Pítima contra la ociosidad, Aragón, 1608): Founded under the patronage of Count of Guimerà. The Biblioteca Nacional de España has the statutes, minutes, and many of the compositions of this academy preserved in MS. 9396.

• Academia de Huesca (Aragón, 1610–1612).

• Academia de Parnaso, later renamed Academia Salvaje or Academia Madrileña (Madrid, February April 1612 – summer 1614): Founded by Francisco de Silva, its members included Cervantes, Luis Vélez de Guevara, Alonso de Salas Barbadillo, Lope, Quevedo, Góngora. In February 1612, Lope, in one of his regular letters to the Duke of Sessa, mentioned the opening of the Academia del Parnaso at Francisco de Silva's home, adding that "there were no nobles present; they must not yet know of it; it will last until they do".

• Academia de Montañeses del Parnaso (Valencia, 1616): founded by Guillén de Castro.

• Academia Medrano (also known as the Academia Poética de Madrid ): Although it probably started in 1607, presided by Félix Arias Girón, from 1616 to 1622 it was held at the house of Sebastian Francisco de Medrano. Its members included Lope, Quevedo, Góngora, Tirso (c. 1620), Luis Vélez de Guevara, Calderón, Alonso de Castillo Solórzano, Prince Esquilache, José Pellicer, Anastasio Pantaleón de Ribera and Guillen de Castro.

• Academia Peregrina (1621): Manuscript 3,889 (Poesías varias) of the Biblioteca Nacional de España (BNM) contains what appears to be a foundational charter for a "Peregrine Academy" which, however, never became active. This document was likely authored by Sebastian Francisco de Medrano, founder and president of the Medrano Academy (also known as the Poetic Academy of Madrid). Medrano's document included the names of three official patrons; the Duke consort of Híjar, the Count of Oñate, and the Count of Sástago.

• Academia del Buen Retiro (Madrid, first half of the 17th century): With minutes drawn up by Luis Vélez de Guevara, its members included Esquilache, Luis Menéndez de Haro, Antonio de Mendoza, and Francisco de Rojas Zorilla, who was the victim of an attempt on his life which was directly attributed to the offence caused by his vejamen in February 1638.

• Academia de los Anhelantes (Zaragoza, active in 1637): Members included Lupercio ArgensolaLupercio Argensola.

Dates unknown

• Academia de Tarazona.
• Academia de Mendoza: Members included María de Zayas.
• Academia de los Desconfiados (Barcelona).
• Academia del Conde de Aliaga (Madrid).
• Academia de Juan de Arguijo (Seville): Members included Lope and Cervantes.
• Academia del Duque de Alcalá (Seville).
• Academia de Francisco Pacheco (Seville). Founded by the painter Francisco Pacheco, its gatherings brought together painters, poets and writers such as Pablo de Céspedes, Juan de Jáuregui, Francisco de Rioja, Cervantes, Baltasar del Alcázar and Juan de la Cueva.
• Academia de los Adorantes (Valencia).
• Academia de los Soles (Valencia).

See also

• Conceptismo
• Culteranismo
• Salon (gathering)

References

1. "Golden Age". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved 1 January 2025.
2. ^ Robbins, Jeremy (1997). Love Poetry of the Literary Academies in the Reigns of Philip IV and Charles II, pp. 1, 10–11. Tamesis. Google Books. Retrieved 2 January 2025.
3. ^ (in Spanish). Sliwa, Krzysztof (2006). Vida de Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, pp. 565-572. Fayetteville State University. Google Books. Retrieved 1 January 2025.
4. ^ (in Spanish). Egido, Aurora (1984) . "Una introducción a la poesía y a las Academias Literarias del siglo XVII", Estudios Humanísticos. Filología, pp. 13–15, 22. Universidad de León. Retrieved 1 January 2025.
5. ^ (in Spanish). González, Aurelio (2017). El viaje del parnaso: texto y contexto (1614-2014), footnote 17. Google Books. Retrieved 3 January 2025.
6. ^ Ríos Castaño, Victoria (2021). "Cervantes and Other Literary Circles". IN: Aaron M. Kahn. The Oxford Handbook of Cervantes, pp. 535–538. OUP. Google Books. Retrieved 3 January 2025.
7. ^ Ziomek, Henryk, "A History of Spanish Golden Age Drama" (1984). Spanish Literature, 21, pp. 83, 89. CORE. Retrieved 1 January 2025.
8. ^ (in Spanish). Rodríguez Cachón, Irene (2020). "Temas y motivos de los discursos en prosa de la Academia de Nocturnos de Valencia". Edad de oro, 39, pp. 159–176. ISSN: 0212-0429. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Retrieved 5 January 2025.
9. (in Spanish). Ferri Coll, José María (1998). "Burlas y chanzas en las academias literarias del Siglo de Oro: Los Nocturnos de Valencia". IN: Florencio Sevilla and Carlos Alvar (eds.): Actas del XIII Congreso de la Asociación Internacional de Hispanistas (1998a), pp. 331–332, 334. Centro Virtual Cervantes. Instituto Cervantes. Retrieved 2 January 2025.
10. ^ Ferri Coll, José María (2021). "La sociabilidad en una academia literaria. El caso de los Nocturnos de Valencia...". Philobiblion: Revista de Literaturas Hispánicas, 14, pp. 24, 31–32. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Retrieved 5 January 2025.
11. ^ (in Spanish). Marrón Guareño, Mª Dolores (2021). "Casa del placer honesto (1620) de Alonso J. de Salas Barbadillo: un marco académico en el Madrid del Siglo de Oro". Philobiblion: Revista de Literaturas Hispánicas, 14, pp. 44–45. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Retrieved 3 January 2025.
12. ^ (in Spanish). Jiménez Belmonte, Javier (2007). Las Obras en Verso del Príncipe de Esquilache: Amateurismo y Conciencia Literaria, pp. 56, 75, 166. Google Books. Retrieved 1 January 2024.
13. ^ (in Spanish) Martínez Hernández, Santiago. Cuadernos de Historia Moderna. 2010, vol. 35, 35-67, pp. 55–56. Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Retrieved 4 January 2025.
14. ^ (in Spanish). Martínez Hernández, Santiago. "Diego de Sandoval y Rojas de la Cerda". Diccionario Biográfico electrónico (DB~e). Real Academia de la Historia. Retrieved 1 January 2025.
15. (in Spanish). Mora Lorenzos, Cristina (2005). "Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616): una biografía madrileña y fortuna de los inmuebles que habitó en la corte". Madrid. Revista de arte, geografía e historia, pp. 25-26, 37, footnote 24. Comunidad de Madrid - Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Retrieved 1 January 2025.
16. (in Spanish). Enciso Alonso-Muñumer, Isabel. "Pedro Fernández de Castro". Diccionario Biográfico electrónico (DB~e).] Real Academia de la Historia. Retrieved 1 January 2025.
17. ^ King, Willard F. (1960). "The Academies and Seventeenth-Century Spanish Literature". PMLA / Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, Volume 75 , Issue 4-Part1, September 1960, pp. 367–376, footnotes 5, 11, 25. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 5 January 2025.
18. ^ (in Spanish). Jauralde Pou, Pablo (1979). "Alonso de Castillo Solorzano, "Donaires del Parnaso" y "La fábula de Polifemo". Revista de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos. LXXXII, no. 4, Madrid, October–December 1979, pp. 740 (footnote 35), 742. Biblioteca Nacional de España. Retrieved 3 January 2025.
19. Suárez Álvarez, Jaime. RABM, 1947, cited in Jauralde Pou, 1979.

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