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years, after Spain's change of alliances, he
was once again fighting the British. By 1803
he was senior admiral of the Spanish fleet
and in the following year served as ambas-
sador to France. He was recalled to active
sea duty to collaborate with the French in
the operations that culminated in the B
AT
-
TLE
OF
T
RAFALGAR
in 1805. In that fierce
contest his flagship
Príncipe de Asturias
was
engaged with as many as five British war-
ships at once. The admiral, who had already
sustained many wounds in the course of his
career, was severely injured and had to be
brought ashore. He never fully recovered
from these wounds and died in C
ÁDIZ
a few
months later.
Toledo rather than returning to Italy, hav-
ing established a circle of friends and fellow
intellectuals in the city as well as a relation-
ship with Jerónima de las Cuevas. Their
son, Jorge Manuel Theotocópoulos, became
an artist and architect who had a successful
(though not brilliant) career in early 17th-
century Toledo.
Although El Greco's
The Adoration of the
Holy Name of Jesus
had won him initial favor
with Philip II in 1578, that monarch ended
their contact in 1582 when
The Martyrdom
of St. Maurice
exhibited a departure from
conventional imagery that offended Philip's
conservative taste. Despite royal disap-
proval and his own personal commitment
to pursuing his own ideas and his own
visionary style of painting, El Greco found
patrons well into the 1600s, working with
assistants, turning out many paintings, and
living in comfortable circumstances. His
most notable achievements included such
religious subjects as
The Assumption
(1577),
The Disrobing of Christ
(
El espolio,
1577),
The
Trinity
(1577-79),
Christ Carrying the Cross
and
The Crucifixion
(1580s),
The Holy Family
(1590-95),
The Resurrection
(late 1590s),
The
Pentecost
(c. 1596-1600),
The Virgin and Child
with Sts. Martina and Agnes
(1597-99),
The
Baptism of Christ
(1600),
The Agony in the
Garden
(c. 1600-05),
The Nativity
(1603-05),
The Immaculate Conception
(1608-13),
The
Adoration of the Shepherds
(1612),
The Visita-
tion
(1610) and
The Marriage of the Virgin
(1613-14), as well as
The Opening of the Fifth
Seal
(1608). He also painted portraits of
luminaries of his time, such as the poet L
UIS
DE
G
ÓNGORA
, Fray Hortensio Félix Paravi-
cino, and Cardinal Niño de Guevara. He
occasionally touched upon mythological
themes as well, as with
Lacoon
(1608), and
became one of the first true landscapists
Greco, El (Doménikos
Theotokópoulos, Doménicos
Theotocópoulos)
(1541-1614)
Spanish painter
Born in Crete (then a possession of Venice)
and trained in the Byzantine tradition of
icon painting, Theotokópoulos worked and
studied in Venice from 1558 to 1570, then
spent several years in Rome before return-
ing to Venice. During his Italian sojourn he
was influenced by the paintings of Titian
and Tintoretto. He moved to Spain in
1576/7, hoping to take part in the embel-
lishment of E
L
E
SCORIAL
but apparently was
rejected by P
HILIP
II because of what the
king considered eccentricities of style. The-
otokópoulos settled in T
OLEDO
where he
found frequent commissions for the adorn-
ment of religious edifices, as well as for por-
traits. The designation “El Greco” (“the
Greek”) was commonly applied to him in
Spain, although he continued to sign his
paintings with his personal name, using
Greek letters. He spent the rest of his life in
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