Medrano Academy
The Medrano Academy, also known as the Poetic Academy of Madrid, was a prominent academia literaria of the Spanish Golden Age, founded by Dr. Sebastián Francisco de Medrano. Active between 1616 and 1622 on Leganitos Street in Madrid, the academy brought together many of the most celebrated poets and playwrights of the Baroque period, including Lope de Vega, Francisco de Quevedo, Luis de Góngora, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Luis Vélez de Guevara, Alonso de Castillo Solórzano, and others.
Founded by a rising poet of noble lineage, the Medrano Academy became one of Madrid’s most distinguished literary gatherings of the early seventeenth century, hosting contests, lampoons, and royal visits that shaped the poetic culture of Spain’s Golden Age.
Establishment
The Medrano Academy was among the most significant academias literarias, a type of literary tertulia that flourished during Spain's Golden Age of literature and the arts under the reign of the Spanish Habsburgs. By the seventeenth century, these literary academies had become one of the most prominent features of literary life in Spain. According to Alonso de Castillo Solórzano, the Medrano Academy was known as "the most renowned Academy Madrid ever had."A group of young poets had been gathering since 1615 in a Jesuit house. When the poets could no longer gather at this house, Dr. Sebastian Francisco de Medrano established the Medrano Academy on Leganitos street in 1616, became its president, and dedicated space in his home to the poets until he was ordained a priest in 1622.
A group of young poets had been gathering since 1615 in a Jesuit house. When they could no longer convene there, Dr. Sebastián Francisco de Medrano formally established the Medrano Academy on Leganitos Street in 1616. He became its president and dedicated part of his own home to host the academy’s meetings, a role he maintained until his ordination as a priest in 1622. The street of Leganitos, which runs from the Plazuela de Santo Domingo to the outskirts of the town between the North and West, is a long avenue of regular buildings, it is mainly used for private residences.
Many of the most illustrious names of the Spanish Golden Age aspired to share their works at the literary gatherings of the Medrano Academy. These meetings often attracted nobles, with Medrano presiding as president and a prominent literary figure serving as secretary.
Numerous poetic contests were held at the Academy. Each session typically concluded with a vejamen, a satirical prose critique considered "an integral part of any academy session." After Medrano’s ordination in 1622, the academy was directed by Francisco de Mendoza, with meetings continuing at his residence beginning in 1623.
José Sánchez suggests that the academy may have originated as early as 1607 under the leadership of Félix Arias Girón, son of the Count of Puñonrostro, though details of this early phase remain obscure. Its most documented and influential period, however, took place between 1616 and 1622 at the residence of Dr. Sebastián Francisco de Medrano. This era coincided with the arrival of Alonso de Castillo Solórzano at court and culminated in the publication of his first work, Donaires.
President of the Medrano Academy
According to Solórzano, the founder and president Sebastián Francisco de Medrano was born in Madrid at the end of the 16th century, into the illustrious Medrano family. Medrano presided over numerous poetic contests "with great elegance and erudition, delivering judgments without offending anyone." The House of Medrano were well-known patrons and participants of literature and the arts during the Spanish Golden Age; in 1622, Medrano became a priest and commissioner of the Spanish Inquisition, serving as the official censor of comedias. Alonso de Castillo Solórzano writes:To an academy founded in Leganitos, I came to become a poet, although by novice layman. Medrano was a teenager when he founded the Academy... the most celebrated Academy of Madrid, where he was Most deserving President... the prince of the most renowned Academy Madrid ever had.
Notable members and royal involvement
Medrano presided over a distinguished circle of poets and playwrights who helped define the literary culture of the Baroque period, though many remain unnamed. In his Favores de las Musas, he alludes to the scope of participants by addressing Solórzano directly:
... I summoned so many flourishing minds to the academies... individuals are famous in all poems and celebrated in all sciences, subjects, and faculties, and are supreme objects of admiration... to those I acknowledge as my superiors, I ask forgiveness from those whom I have not named.
Some of the most illustrious figures of the Spanish Golden Age were associated with the Medrano Academy. An incomplete roster compiled by Sebastián Francisco de Medrano identifies numerous participants, many of whom were also linked to the contemporaneous Saldaña Academy. Among them were:
- Lope de Vega
- Francisco de Quevedo
- Luis de Góngora
- Juan Ruiz de Alarcón
- Luis Vélez de Guevara
- Antonio Mira de Amescua
- Juan Pérez de Montalbán
- Pedro Calderón de la Barca
- Alonso de Castillo Solórzano
- Jerónimo de Villaizán
- José Pellicer de Tovar
- Gabriel Bocángel
- Guillén de Castro
- Jiménez de Enciso
- Gaspar del Ávila
- Diego de Villegas
- López de Zárate
- The Prince of Esquilache
- Valdivieso
- Salas Barbadillo
- Cristóbal de Mesa
- Gabriel del Corral
- Antonio Hurtado de Mendoza
- Tirso de Molina.
Royal attendance
On that beautiful spring night in the year 1622... the Academy of that night came to an end.
In reference to Prince Francisco de Borja y Aragón, himself a member of the academy, Medrano offered the following tribute:
The Medrano Academy, though short-lived, stood as a luminous convergence point for literary brilliance and noble patronage, leaving an enduring imprint on the intellectual and cultural fabric of Spain’s Golden Age.
I turned my attention to Francisco de Borja y Aragón, prince of Squillace, for whom heaven not only made him illustrious in blood but also equaled his genius, which was outstanding in all sciences and faculties.
Notable works
Tirso de Molina
One of the most enduring tributes to the legacy of the Medrano Academy appears in the 19th-century play Desde Toledo a Madrid, originally authored by Tirso de Molina, who was a documented member of the Medrano Academy during its early 17th-century flourishing. Refashioned and performed in 1847 by Manuel Bretón de los Herreros and Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch, the play notably includes a character named Medrano, serving as a literary homage to the academy’s founder, Sebastián Francisco de Medrano. This appearance reflects the Medrano Academy’s long cultural memory and the symbolic persistence of its name within Spanish letters. That a Medrano character appears in a theatrical lineage directly tied to Tirso reaffirms the academy’s formative role in Spain’s Golden Age and its continued influence in the national canon.Another copy of the comedic play Desde Toledo a Madrid is included in Volume VII of Teatro escogido by Fray Gabriel Téllez, the character Medrano appears as a lively and outspoken coachman. Throughout the journey from Toledo to Madrid, Medrano provides comic relief through sarcastic remarks and animated exchanges with passengers, contributing to the play’s satire of travel, class tensions, and social pretensions. His presence exemplifies Tirso’s signature use of servant figures to critique and enliven courtly drama.
Lope de Vega
La nueva victoria de Don Gonzalo de Córdoba is a historical drama by Academia de los Medrano alumnus Lope de Vega, dramatizing the Spanish victory at the Battle of Fleurus, one of the early and decisive engagements of the Thirty Years’ War. The play centers on Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, dramatized as a patriotic emblem of Spanish military valor. It was preserved in autograph manuscript at the Biblioteca Nacional de España and was reissued in a critical paleographic edition by Henryk Ziomek in 1962 through the Hispanic Institute in the United States, incorporating variant readings from the 1637, 1641, 1777, and 1902 editions.Among the dramatis personae is Capitán Medrano, a military character accompanied by his squire Esteban. The pairing reflects Lope's characteristic use of noble-master and clever-servant archetypes, contributing to the play’s tonal alternation between solemn military pageantry and agile comic dialogue. Medrano's inclusion situates the character within the broader tradition of Lope's dramatization of loyalty, service, and martial discipline in the context of Spain's imperial wars.
Cultural Enactment in the Spanish Golden Age
served as commissioner of the Spanish Inquisition, where he exercised official censorship over comedias to ensure that theatrical works aligned with religious and moral doctrine. In this dual capacity as censor and creator, Medrano codified the Doctrine of Medrano in its cultural form, where art, virtue, and institutional authority were harmonized under divine and royal law. This enabled him to become the official regulator of a theatrical genre largely created and defined by Lope de Vega. Research from the University of California shows that the comedia of Spain's Golden Age developed as Madrid grew into an imperial capital and corrales brought nobles, women, and commoners together in a unified theatrical space. Plays were written in verse, divided into three jornadas, moved rapidly across time and place, and included music, dance, and comic interludes.File:El Greco - View of Toledo - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|Toledo by El Greco. Morales Medrano and his troupe appeared in Toledo for the Corpus Christi celebrations.
The presidents relative Juan de Morales Medrano was active as an actor by 1595, although his prominence arose from his work as an author of comedias and as a theatrical empresario. Married to the famous actress Jusepa Vaca, celebrated by members of the Medrano Academy such as Lope de Vega and Luis Vélez de Guevara as one of the most famed actresses in Spain of her time, he directed his own company almost continuously from 1601 to 1631 and became one of the most recognized theatrical figures of the early seventeenth century. His troupe appeared in Corpus Christi celebrations sixteen times from 1604 onward across Seville, Madrid, Toledo, Medina de Rioseco and Valencia, performing in major urban centres.
By 1603 his company was already linked to the royal household, performing private comedias for Margaret of Austria, Queen of Spain, in Valladolid. From 1625, performances for Philip IV became frequent, and in 1623 his troupe was selected for the festivities during the visit of the Prince of Wales to Madrid, where they were assigned a principal stage in the city. However, by 1631, Luis Quiñones de Benavente described his troupe as outdated in the Loa con que empezó Lorenzo Hurtado en Madrid la segunda vez, marking its decline. He dissolved the company in 1632 and later joined the troupe of his son-in-law Antonio de Prado. A document signed by Jusepa Vaca in 1647 confirms that he had died by that date.
Within the broader cultural setting of the Medrano Academy of Poetry, his career shows how theatrical companies, court performances and public comedias reviewed by Sebastián Francisco de Medrano formed a parallel channel for the circulation of erudition, wit and artistic discipline in Madrid. While Sebastián Francisco de Medrano shaped doctrine and culture within the academy, Morales Medrano contributed through professional theatre and public performance, representing a complementary expression of early seventeenth-century artistic life.