author
Vicente Espinel
d. 1624
A lively figure from Spain’s Golden Age, this poet, novelist, and musician is best remembered for the spirited storytelling of Marcos de Obregón and for shaping the verse form later called the espinela. His life moved between study, travel, music, and the priesthood, giving his writing an unusually wide range of experience.
1 Audiobook
Vida del escudero Marcos de Obregón
by Vicente Espinel
About the author
Born in Ronda on December 28, 1550, Vicente Espinel became one of the many-sided talents of Spain’s Siglo de Oro. Reliable reference sources describe him as a writer and musician, and they also note his studies at the University of Salamanca. He died in Madrid on February 4, 1624.
Espinel is especially known for La vida del escudero Marcos de Obregón (1618), a picaresque novel that helped secure his literary reputation. He is also widely credited with giving lasting form to the ten-line stanza known as the décima, which in Spanish later took the name espinela in his honor.
Beyond literature, he was remembered as an accomplished musician and priest, and some sources also associate him with the growing importance of the five-course guitar in Spain. That mix of literary craft, musical skill, and lived experience helps explain why his work still stands out among writers of the Spanish Golden Age.