Fernando de Rojas

Fernando de Rojas was a Castilian jurist, trained in law and holding the degree of bachiller, who is credited with writing all or most of La Celestina, one of the most influential works in Spanish literature. He lived at the close of the Middle Ages and in the early years of the Renaissance, and his importance rests almost entirely on that single work.

He was probably born in La Puebla de Montalbán, in the province of Toledo, around 1465 or, more likely, in the mid-1470s. No document records his birth, and nothing certain is known about his childhood. Some scholars think that details in the book, such as the church of San Miguel or a family orchard, may reflect his early surroundings. It is generally assumed that he studied law at Salamanca, a conclusion drawn from the prefatory texts, in which he calls himself a jurist and says he finished the work during a holiday.

The book first appeared as a sixteen-act Comedia de Calisto y Melibea and was later expanded to twenty-one acts as Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea. Rojas moved to Talavera de la Reina in 1508, apparently to avoid taxes that the lesser nobility of his native town had to pay. There he practised law, served several times as mayor, and worked as legal adviser to the town council. He married Leonor Álvarez de Montalbán around 1512, the daughter of a converso later prosecuted by the Inquisition. His surviving records suggest a comfortable fortune and a library that hints at a love of chess and reading.

His family background remains disputed. Some historians argue that he came from a converso household suspected of practising Judaism in secret; others present him as a minor noble fully integrated into Christian civic life. Whichever view is right, he left no other literary works and had no known dealings with publishers, and the early editions appeared without his name.

His legacy lies in the rapid success of La Celestina, which went through many editions and translations in the sixteenth century, and in the book's stubborn refusal to fit a single genre. Its mixture of drama, dialogue and narrative has made it a lasting reference for readers and critics.