Researching my series Andaludican Nights gave me an excuse to visit Seville, one of my favourite cities in the world. The architecture there is so interesting that I find I always walk with my head raised, looking up. Here is a perfect example of an attention-grabbing building:

Isn’t is beautiful? It was designed for the 1929 Iberico-American Expo as the Pavilion of Seville in the neo-baroque style. These days it is a theatre, where you can watch flamenco, plays and concerts, and it is named the Lope de Vega Theatre.

Have you heard of Lope de Vega (1562–1635)? He is very famous in Spain – a playwright, novelist and poet who is often considered to be the Spanish equivalent of Shakespeare.

He wrote a staggering number of works: around 3,000 sonnets, 9 epic poems and 500 plays, along with 3 novels. Indeed he is one of the most prolific writers in all of history. Did de Vega sacrifice quality in the pursuit of quantity? Perhaps at times, but many of his works have been held in very high regard by literary critics and fellow writers. Miguel de Cervantes called him Monstruo de la Naturaleza (Prodigy of Nature).

What I love best about Lope de Vega’s works is the passion inherent in them. De Vega was a passionate man: he had many affairs, one of which saw him exiled and another facing a lawsuit. Even when he joined the priesthood, he could not control his heart’s yearnings: he was born to love, and to write of that love. Here are some of my favourite quotations from de Vega:

With a few flowers in my garden, half a dozen pictures and some books, I live without envy.

Dreaming of a tomorrow, which tomorrow, will be as distant then as ’tis today.

There is no greater glory than love, nor any great punishment than jealously.

Harmony is pure love, for love is a concerto.

And finally:

To turn your face from clear proofs of deceit,
To drink poison as if it were a soothing liquor,
To disregard gain and delight in being injured,
To believe that heaven can lie contained in hell,
To devote your life and soul to being disillusioned,
This is love; whoever has tasted it, knows.

If you are interested in de Vega and his passions, I can recommend the 2010 movie The Outlaw, which is biographical:

In 16th Century Spain a gifted young playwright and soldier, Lope de Vega returns to Madrid from the war. Filled with ambition, eager to live, to write and to make his dreams a reality he is forced to work as a humble copyist. Lope falls for his boss‟s ravishing daughter Elena but must keep the relationship secret. But Elena has another secret: she’s already married. When Lope finds out, he asks her to end her marriage and make their love public. Elena refuses. Wounded, he is tempted to play along with the one woman who can bring his vision to the stage, but his passion burns stronger than his ambition, and he publicly exposes the hypocrisy of Elena and her father. Furious, they accuse him of slander. With the Law on his heels, Lope must outrun danger and overcome adversity to clear his name. Only his rediscovered childhood friend, the beautiful Isabel, can help him. As they travel battle along the road to freedom together, Lope discovers his own true love. But fate is not yet finished with him…

The movie is in Spanish with English subtitles and is available on Amazon. Here is the theatrical trailer: