The Vallisoletan Pedro Escobar Cabeza de Vaca in His Luzero de La Tierra Sancta

Abstract

The books of pilgrimage that circulated in Western Europe in the Golden Age, have suffered a double oblivion: on the one hand, as travel books they have not been considered in literature manuals; on the other hand, their religious themes and repetitive structure have been arguments for the critics to barely pay attention to them. It is not surprising, therefore, that an author like Pedro Escobar Cabeza de Vaca and his Luzero de la Tierra Sancta have been ignored, and their study seems today more an exercise of "literary archeology" than of literary history . In the following pages we try to demonstrate that the study of a work like this is interesting from several points of view and provides new clues to understanding the Spanish culture and literature of the late 16^th century.