Surrounding the life of Velázquez, captured in the most significant moments of his intimacy and his double career as courtier and artist, the writer weaves an intense and melancholic novel against the backdrop of what is beginning to be the decline of the great Spanish empire. From the Sevillian days of his youth until his death in Madrid (and even later, when the king paints the cross of Santiago on the chest of the corpse of the
painter), story is an exciting analysis of dramatic situations, suggestive settings (the Sevillian Arenal, the Alcázar and the Court of Madrid, the Rome of Innocent X) and extraordinary characters, such as the master
Pacheco, his daughter, Juana who will be the wife of Velázquez, King Felipe IV, his favorite the Count-Duke of Olivares, the brilliant Rubens, Ambrosio de Spínola, crossed by an enigmatic and dazzling intrigue... A magnificent recreation of environments and landscapes, with a psychological acuity that allows you to relive from within the Spain of the seventeenth century and the men who made its drama and its greatness.
- Soft cover
- Publisher: Editorial Planeta, SA (2000)
- Language: Spanish
- ISBN-10: 8408035592
- ISBN-13: 978-8408035596