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of his plays for the volume he titled
Propal-
ladia
(1517—the title is an allusion to Pallas
Athena, Greek goddess of wisdom), he
included a preface in which he sets forth his
own classification of types of drama divided
into those based on reality and those
derived from imagination yet having a basis
in real life. This distinction was not entirely
clear, and he would later cross the line him-
self. He was, nevertheless, attempting to lay
a theoretical foundation for a new Spanish
drama. Included among the pieces in
Pro-
palladia
was
Comedia soldadesca,
a portrayal
of rough and ready military life, undoubt-
edly derived from his own experience. This
volume also included
Comedia Himenea,
a
prototype of the “cape and sword” play that
introduced a concept of “honor” that became
a major theme persisting throughout much
of early modern Spanish drama. Torres
Naharro is even bolder in
Comedia tinelaria,
in which he portrays the corrupt, immoral,
and entertainingly unscrupulous environ-
ment of a cardinal's palace viewed from the
perspective of the prelate's kitchen and the
servants swarming there. These and other
plays were performed in the more tolerant
atmosphere of papal Rome, but their amo-
rality and lack of discretion scandalized the
S
PANISH
I
NQUISITION
, which forbade their
presentation in Spain. The printed text was
not published there until the 1540s in
altered form. His works as a whole were
placed on the Index of Forbidden topics
from 1559 and only reappeared in an expur-
gated form in 1573. One gets a clearer sense
of how shocking this playwright's creations
were to the censors when it is noted that
each of them was preceded by a comic pro-
logue in which peasants, speaking the
say-
agués
dialect introduced by Encina for comic
effect, descended into gross obscenity.
Both as a theorist and as a playwright
Torres Naharro created a pathway to the
flourishing drama of the S
IGLO
DE
O
RO
(Golden Age). He stated norms of structure
and theme that continued to influence the
thinking of his successors, despite his own
willingness to disregard them. He also
moved beyond the relatively modest inno-
vations of Encina to present a realistic and
sometimes scandalous view of society.
Torres Villaroel, Diego de
(1693-1770)
Spanish writer and adventurer
From his birth in S
ALAMANCA
to his death
in the same city, Torres Villaroel passed
through a kaleidoscopic variety of activities
and occupations. He was, at various times,
a youthful runaway, a hermit, a bullfighter,
a dancer, a medical student, an astrologer, a
self-taught mathematician, a university
professor, a priest, a goblin chaser, a social
critic and advocate of enlightened reform, a
popular idol, and the protégé of several
noble ladies. All of these experiences and
excursions are recorded in his personal
memoir,
Vida,
which was published in 1743
in the guise of a picaresque novel. Those
personae not chronicled therein are mani-
fested in the many other topics of which he
was author during his long life. These
revealed the amazing range of his exper-
tise—or at least his interest—and his will-
ingness to share it with the public. Torres
has been variously described as a Renais-
sance man or man of the Enlightenment or
a complete charlatan who could win the
confidence of influential people as well as
credulous commoners by sheer bluff. His
first “scientific” publication, for instance,
was an almanac that he compiled after lim-
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