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Diego de Sandoval y Rojas de la Cerda, 9th Count of Saldaña, also referred to as Diego Gómez de Sandoval y Rojas de la Cerda (1587? – 7 December 1632) was a Spanish noble and patron of the Arts.

Biography

The second-born son of Catalina de la Cerda and Francisco de Sandoval y Rojas, Diego de Sandoval's father would, in 1599, become the powerful Duke of Lerma, favourite of Philip III, until he was brought down by his eldest son (Diego de Sandoval's elder brother), Cristóbal Gómez de Sandoval, 1st Duke of Uceda, together with Luis de Aliaga, and Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares, engineered the exile of his father from the court, and Uceda's own succession to the position his father had held, in 1618, and shortly thereafter, naming Aliaga Grand Inquisitor of Spain.

Diego de Sandoval came into the countship of Saldaña through his marriage to Countess Luisa de Mendoza, heiress of the 6th Duchess of the Infantado, Ana de Mendoza, in 1603.

In 1605, Diego de Sandoval was confined to his father's castle at Ampudia for having been involved in a brawl in Valladolid, in which he was badly hurt and nearly died from his wounds. Some years later, in 1612, he was involved in another incident which resulted in him being confined to the Ducal Palace of Lerma, punishment which was lifted thanks to the intervention of Henry of Lorraine, Duke of Mayenne, the French ambassador.

Lope de Vega, in a letter to the Duke of Sessa, dated September 1617, described the count as "the living image of his father, discreet, kind, polite, friendly and worthy of especial consideration in this age".

Academia de Saldaña

In 1604 he founded the Academia de Saldaña, also known as the Academia de Madrid or Academia Castellana, an academia literaria active, in its first edition, in Madrid until 1608. Its illustrious members included Lope de Vega, Antonio Hurtado de Mendoza, Diego Duque de Estrada, Andrés de Claramonte, Francisco de Quevedo, Miguel de Cervantes, Luis de Góngora, Salas Barbadillo, Count of Villamediana, Pantaleón de Ribera and Luis Vélez de Guevara.

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.

In 1611, Saldaña re-established the academy although another source states that the academy's first session was held on 15 April 1612, with an inaugural speech by Vélez de Guevara.

Other attendees, either as men of letters themselves or as patrons of the Arts, included the Duke of Feria, the Duke of Pastrana, Francisco de Borja (Prince Esquilache), Count of Lemos, the Count of Cantillana, and the Count-Duke of Olivares.

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. Cervantes, and several other members, including Quevedo, Góngora, Alonso de Salas Barbadillo, Luis Vélez de Guevara, and Lope, went on to join the Academia de Parnaso, later renamed Academia Salvaje (Madrid, April 1612 – summer 1614), founded by Francisco de Silva.

Cervantes dedictated his ode "Florida y tierna rama" and writes that he lives under Saldaña's wing "a tu sombra" (cited in Herrero García, p. 507.).

References

1. ^ (in Spanish). Pérez Marcos, Regina María. "Cristóbal Gómez de Sandoval y Rojas". Diccionario Biográfico electrónico (DB~e). Real Academia de la Historia. Retrieved 3 January 2025.
2. (in Spanish). Cotarelo y Mori, Emilio (1886). El conde de Villamediana: estudio biográfico-crítico con varias poesías inéditas del mismo, p. 277 (footnote 1). Google Books. Retrieved 3 January 2025.
3. ^ Ríos Castaño, Victoria (2021). "Cervantes and Other Literary Circles". IN: Aaron M. Kahn. The Oxford Handbook of Cervantes, pp. 532, 537–6. OUP. Google Books. Retrieved 3 January 2025.
4. ^ (in Spanish). Martínez Hernández, Santiago. "Diego de Sandoval y Rojas de la Cerda". Diccionario Biográfico electrónico (DB~e). Real Academia de la Historia. Retrieved 3 January 2025.
5. ^ Robbins, Jeremy (1997). Love Poetry of the Literary Academies in the Reigns of Philip IV and Charles II, p. 25. Tamesis. Google Books. Retrieved 3 January 2025.
6. ^ (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, p. 45 (and footnotes 7 & 8). Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Retrieved 3 January 2025.
7. ^ (in Spanish). Sliwa, Krzysztof (2006). Vida de Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, pp. 565-572. Fayetteville State University. Google Books. Retrieved 3 January 2025.
8. ^ (in Spanish). González, Aurelio (2017). El viaje del parnaso: texto y contexto (1614-2014), footnote 17. Google Books. Retrieved 3 January 2025.
9. (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 3 January 2025.
10. (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 3 January 2024.
11. (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.

• 1587 births
• 1632 deaths