Bartolome de Torres Naharro

Torres Naharro, Bartolomé de (c.1485–c.1524), leading Spanish dramatist of the 16th century, contemporary with Encina and Gil Vicente. Little is known of his life, but from 1513 he was in Rome, where most of his plays appear to have been written. His collected works appeared in 1517 under the title of Propalladia. The important prologue distinguishes between two types of play, the comedia a noticia and the comedia a fantasía, terms which may be said to correspond to realistic and novelesque genres. Of the former type two examples have survived, Soldadesca, dealing with a braggart Spanish captain, and Tinellaria, depicting life in the kitchen of an Italian palace. The best-known example of the novelesque plays is Himenea, based on part of the Celestina, where the relationship between master and man and the theme of the conflict of love and honour both foreshadow the plays of Lope de Vega Carpio.

Bartolomé de Torres Naharro , fl. 1531, Spanish dramatist and lyric poet, b. Extremadura. As a young man he went to Italy and became a priest. Greatly influenced by the Italian Renaissance, he is considered the originator of the modern Spanish secular theater. He is known for his Propaladia (1517), a collection of eight plays and a prologue; the prologue is the first theoretical exposition of dramatic precepts for the Spanish stage.

Bibliography: See his Propaladia and Other Works, ed. by J. E. Gillet (4 vol., 1943-61).

Naharro, Bartolomé de Torres, see TORRES NAHARRO.