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19.11.2025

Lecture on Cervantes and Financial Accountability This Saturday in Valdegovía

The Municipal Library of Valdegovía is organizing a special lecture this Saturday, November 22, at 1:00 p.m., focused on a lesser-known side of Miguel de Cervantes: his work as an official of the Royal Treasury and the influence this experience had on the creation of Don Quixote.

The talk, titled “How Much Don Quixote Owes to Financial Accountability,” will be delivered by Jorge Tua, Professor of Financial Economics and Accounting at the Autonomous University of Madrid, who describes himself as “a Gaubea native by ancestry and at heart, a fairground chatterbox, and, in his former professional life, a university professor.”

During the lecture — or “little chat,” as Tua prefers to call it — the speaker will present original documents preserved in the Simancas Archive and explain, in an accessible way, how Cervantes worked between 1587 and 1594 as a supply commissioner for the Royal Navy and as an official of the Royal Treasury. These roles led him to prepare numerous financial records on agricultural prices and daily economic activity in the countryside, which today constitute valuable sources for economic historians.

Professor Tua will also discuss the difficulties Cervantes faced in submitting his accounts, which eventually led to his imprisonment in Seville. It was during this time in jail that Cervantes began writing Don Quixote, as he himself recounts in the book’s prologue.

The event will take place in the Assembly Hall of the Valdegovía Town Hall and is open to the general public.