The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha (Volume 1) baixar o livro de graça

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LIFE OF CERVANTES. CHAPTER I. Birth and Parentage Youth and EducationEarly Essays in Literature Service with Cardinal AcquavivaJourney to Rome. MIGUEL DE CERVANTES' was born at Alcald de Henares, a small town of New Castile, in 1547.' The exact day of his birth is not recorded, but he was baptised, according to the register still extant, 1 The name is generally supposed to be drawn from the ruined tower which stands near the end of the bridge opposite Toledo, familiar to all visitors to the old Gothic capital, called Castillo de San Cervantes. Ford denies this origin, and I think he is right. The name of the tower is known to be a corruption of San Servan, or Servando, a martyr of the early Spanish church. That San Servan became corrupted into San Cervantes is certain; but that Servan or Servando gave the name of Cervantes to the family is not probable. According to the pedigree given by Mendez de Silva (hereafter to be spoken of), the first who took the name of Cervantes was Gonzalo, in the early years of the Thirteenth century, to distinguish himself from his elder brother, Pedro Alfonso, who was called Cervatos. That both these names sprung from the same root is probable, seeing that the arms of the two brothers were nearly alike; their chief blazon being, of the one, in the parish church of Santa Maria the Greater, on the 9th of October. From this fact, which was brought to light for the first time by Don Vicente de Los Rios, in the Life of Cervantes appended to the first edition of the Spanish Royal Academy, it has been assumed that the author of DON Quixote was born on the 29th of September preceding. It was the custom of Castile for the infant to be christened by the name of the saint on whose day he was born, and hence, without any direct evidence, it has ...