They’ve gone and found his bones, finally. He was known to be buried in the Convento de las Monjas Trinitarias Descalzas, but the precise gravesite had been lost to time.
A short editorial in the New Yorker observes that this business of finding the old satirist’s remains is tied in with a creeping commercialization, i.e. the emergence of a “Cervantes tourism industry.” I’m not inclined to condemn this out of hand – it strikes me that Cervantes wouldn’t have been offended by someone making a buck off his remains – indeed, it’s the sort of scheme he’d have been on board with.
I suppose I have a special relationship with Cervantes – his work is, after all, the topic of my never-quite-written PhD dissertation. If I ever make it to Madrid, I’ll feel compelled to visit this newly-created bit of history, I reckon.
Meanwhile, just last weekend I read 5 pages of [broken link! FIXME] a certain book that, in theory, supports that never-quite-written dissertation. Not that I’m going to write it, but sometimes I think about it.
[daily log: walking, 6 km]