DON QUIXOTE TILES FROM SPAIN





All over Spain, decorative icons are easy to find commemorating the adventures of Don Quixote. The image above reproduces a tourist shop in the La Mancha town of Puerto Lápice, the façade of which is decorated with Don Quixote themes, including tile work and a small metal figure of the Hidalgo. The photos reproduced below include decorative tile work from inns and shops in the same village.





The caption at the bottom of the illustration above-left refers to Don Quixote's arrival at the inn ("la venta") in Part One, Chapter II, while the one at the bottom of the middle tile comes from Chapter IV of Part One and refers to Cervantes' hero leaving the inn in good spirits. The right-hand tile, of course, needs no explanation.





These last two tiles, from the city of Seville, do not depict scenes fron Don Quixote, but they do commemorate specific allusions to that city in works by Cervantes . For example, the inscription on the left-hand tile can be translated, "The prince of the ingenious Spaniards, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, mentioned the study of the Company of Jesus, established on these premises, which today houses the University of Literary Studies, in his Exemplary Novel, THE COLLOQUY OF SCIPIO AND BERGANZA. On the right-hand tile, the translated inscription explains that Cervantes wrote one of his sonnets on the occasion of the sepulchral monument built at the Cathedral of Seville in honor of King Philip II.

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