Captain Alatriste
''Captain Alatriste'' ( es, El capitán Alatriste, fully titled Las aventuras del capitán Alatriste) is a series of novels by Spanish author Arturo Pérez-Reverte. It deals with the adventures of the title character, a Spanish soldier and man of fortune living in the 17th century. Series # ''El capitán Alatriste'' (''Captain Alatriste'', 1996): In 1623, Diego Alatriste and Italian sword-for-hire Gualterio Malatesta are paid by two mysterious masked characters to kill a pair of unknown English visitors in Madrid as news reaches the city that the Spanish siege of Bergen op Zoom has been repelled. # ''Limpieza de sangre'' (''Purity of Blood'', 1997): Madrid, 1623. A woman is found murdered in front of a church. Later, Quevedo seeks help from Alatriste to rescue a girl forced to enter a convent; meanwhile Alatriste's young squire Íñigo Balboa deepens his infatuation with the adolescent maidservant of the Queen, Angélica de Alquézar. About the "purity of blood" demanded from ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Arturo Pérez-Reverte
Arturo Pérez-Reverte Gutiérrez (born 25 November 1951 in Cartagena) is a Spanish novelist and journalist. He worked as a war correspondent for RTVE for 21 years (1973–1994). His first novel, ''El húsar'', set in the Napoleonic Wars, was released in 1986. He is well known outside Spain for his " Alatriste" series of novels, which have been translated into multiple languages. Since 2003 he has been a member of the Royal Spanish Academy. Writing Pérez-Reverte's novels are usually centered on one strongly defined character, and his plots move along swiftly, often featuring a narrator who is part of the story but apart from it. Most of his novels take place in Spain or around the Mediterranean. They often draw on numerous references to Spanish history, colonial past, art and culture, ancient treasures and the sea. The novels frequently deal with some of the major issues of modern Spain, such as drug trafficking or the relationship of religion and politics. Often, Pére ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Barbary Pirates
The Barbary pirates, or Barbary corsairs or Ottoman corsairs, were Muslim pirates and privateers who operated from North Africa, based primarily in the ports of Salé, Rabat, Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli, Libya, Tripoli. This area was known in Europe as the Barbary Coast, in reference to the Berbers. Their predation extended throughout the Mediterranean, south along West Africa's Atlantic seaboard and into the North Atlantic as far north as Turkish Abductions, Iceland, but they primarily operated in the western Mediterranean. In addition to seizing merchant ships, they engaged in ''Razzia (military), Razzias'', raids on European coastal towns and villages, mainly in Italy, France, Spain and Portugal, but also in the British Isles, the Netherlands and Iceland. The main purpose of their attacks was to capture slaves for the Slavery in the Ottoman Empire, Ottoman slave trade as well as the general Arab slavery market in North Africa and the Middle East. Slaves in Barbary could be ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Telecinco
Telecinco is a Spanish free-to-air television channel operated by Mediaset España. The channel was previously known as Tele 5, because it had first begun its experimental transmissions on 10 March 1989, and a year later, it was officially launched on 3 March 1990, becoming the fifth of the national terrestrial television channels and the second private channel in Spain. In 1997, Tele 5 was rebranded as Telecinco, dropping the biscione-absent flower logo seen in other Mediaset channel logos. History On April 4, 1986, the Council of Ministers of Spain approved private television in the country, the legislation was approved in 1988. On August 25, 1989, the contest was held to obtain three private television licenses, the which were granted to Gestevisión Telecinco, Grupo Antena 3 and Sogecable. Tele 5 began transmissions experimentally in 1989 to officially begin broadcasting on March 3, 1990, although with limited coverage in Madrid and Barcelona. In January 1991, it achieved ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Diego Velázquez
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (baptized June 6, 1599August 6, 1660) was a Spanish painter, the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV of Spain and Portugal, and of the Spanish Golden Age. He was an individualistic artist of the Baroque period (c.1600–1750). He began to paint in a precise tenebrist style, later developing a freer manner characterized by bold brushwork. In addition to numerous renditions of scenes of historical and cultural significance, he painted scores of portraits of the Spanish royal family and commoners, culminating in his masterpiece ''Las Meninas'' (1656). Velázquez's paintings became a model for 19th-century realist and impressionist painters. In the 20th century, artists such as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, and Francis Bacon paid tribute to Velázquez by re-interpreting some of his most iconic images. Most of his work entered the Spanish royal collection, and by far the best collection is in the Museo del Prado in Madrid, thoug ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Miguel De Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 Old Style and New Style dates, NS) was an Early Modern Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-eminent novelists. He is best known for his novel ''Don Quixote'', a work often cited as both the first modern novel and one of the pinnacles of world literature. Much of his life was spent in poverty and obscurity, which led to many of his early works being lost. Despite this, his influence and literary contribution are reflected by the fact that Spanish is often referred to as "the language of Cervantes". In 1569, Cervantes was forced to leave Spain and move to Rome, where he worked in the household of a Cardinal (Catholic Church), cardinal. In 1570, he enlisted in a Spanish Marine Infantry, Spanish Navy infantry regiment, and was badly wounded at the Battle of Lepanto in October 1571. He served as a soldier until 1575, when he was captur ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Lope De Vega
Félix Lope de Vega y Carpio ( , ; 25 November 156227 August 1635) was a Spanish playwright, poet, and novelist. He was one of the key figures in the Spanish Golden Age of Baroque literature. His reputation in the world of Spanish literature is second only to that of Miguel de Cervantes, while the sheer volume of his literary output is unequalled, making him one of the most prolific authors in the history of literature. He was nicknamed "The Phoenix of Wits" and "Monster of Nature" (in es , Fénix de los Ingenios , links=no, ) by Cervantes because of his prolific nature. Lope de Vega renewed the Spanish theatre at a time when it was starting to become a mass cultural phenomenon. He defined its key characteristics, and along with Pedro Calderón de la Barca and Tirso de Molina, took Spanish Baroque theatre to its greatest heights. Because of the insight, depth and ease of his plays, he is regarded as one of the greatest dramatists in Western literature, his plays still being ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
D'Artagnan Romances
''The d'Artagnan Romances'' are a set of three novels by Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870), telling the story of the 17th-century musketeer d'Artagnan. Dumas based the character and attributes of d'Artagnan on captain of musketeers Charles de Batz-Castelmore d'Artagnan (''c.'' 1611–1673) and the portrayal was particularly indebted to d'Artagnan's semi-fictionalized memoirs as written 27 years after the hero's death by Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras (published 1700). Books in the series * ''The Three Musketeers'', set between 1625 and 1628; first published in serial form in the magazine ''Le Siècle'' between March and July 1844. Dumas claims in the foreword to have based it on manuscripts he had discovered in the Bibliothèque Nationale. * ''Twenty Years After'', set between 1648 and 1649; serialized from January to August 1845. * '' The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later'', set between 1660 and 1673; serialized from October 1847 to January 1850. This vast novel has been split i ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Alexandre Dumas, Père
Alexandre Dumas (, ; ; born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie (), 24 July 1802 – 5 December 1870), also known as Alexandre Dumas père (where ''Suffix (name)#Generational titles, '' is French language, French for 'father', to distinguish him from his son Alexandre Dumas fils), was a French writer. His works have been translated into many languages and he is one of the most widely read French authors. Many of his historical novels of adventure were originally published as serial (literature), serials, including ''The Count of Monte Cristo'', ''The Three Musketeers'', ''Twenty Years After'' and ''The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later''. His novels have been adapted since the early twentieth century into nearly 200 films. Prolific in several genres, Dumas began his career by writing plays, which were successfully produced from the first. He also wrote numerous magazine essay, articles and travel books; his published works totalled 100,000 pages. In the 1840s, Dumas founded the Th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Spanish Golden Age
The Spanish Golden Age ( es, Siglo de Oro, links=no , "Golden Century") is a period of flourishing in arts and literature in Spain, coinciding with the political rise of the Spanish Empire under the Catholic Monarchs of Spain and the Spanish Habsburgs. The greatest patron of Spanish art and culture during this period was King Philip II (1556–1598), whose royal palace, El Escorial, invited the attention of some of Europe's greatest architects and painters such as El Greco, who infused Spanish art with foreign styles and helped create a uniquely Spanish style of painting. It is associated with the reigns of Isabella I, Ferdinand II, Charles V, Philip II, Philip III, and Philip IV, when Spain was one of the most powerful countries in the world. The start of the Golden Age can be placed in 1492, with the end of the ''Reconquista'', the voyages of Christopher Columbus to the New World, and the publication of Antonio de Nebrija's ''Grammar of the Castilian Language''. It ro ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
El País
''El País'' (; ) is a Spanish-language daily newspaper in Spain. ''El País'' is based in the capital city of Madrid and it is owned by the Spanish media conglomerate PRISA. It is the second most circulated daily newspaper in Spain . ''El País'' is the most read newspaper in Spanish online and one of the Madrid dailies considered to be a national newspaper of record for Spain (along with '' El Mundo'' and ''ABC)''. In 2018, its number of daily sales were 138,000. Its headquarters and central editorial staff are located in Madrid, although there are regional offices in the principal Spanish cities (Barcelona, Seville, Valencia, Bilbao, and Santiago de Compostela) where regional editions were produced until 2015. ''El País'' also produces a world edition in Madrid that is available online in English and in Spanish (Latin America). History ''El País'' was founded in May 1976 by a team at PRISA which included Jesus de Polanco, José Ortega Spottorno and Carlos Mendo. The p ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Viggo Mortensen
Viggo Peter Mortensen Jr. R (; born October 20, 1958) is an American actor, writer, director, producer, musician, and multimedia artist. Born and raised in the State of New York to a Danish father and American mother, he also lived in Argentina during his childhood. He is the recipient of various accolades including a Screen Actors Guild Award and has been nominated for three Academy Awards, three BAFTA Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards. Mortensen made his film debut in a small role in Peter Weir's 1985 thriller ''Witness'', which starred Harrison Ford and was set in Amish country. He appeared in several notable films, including ''The Indian Runner'' (1991), ''Carlito's Way'' (1993), '' Crimson Tide'' (1995), ''Daylight'' (1996), '' The Portrait of a Lady'' (1996), ''G.I. Jane'' (1997), '' Psycho'' (1998 remake), ''A Perfect Murder'' (1998), ''A Walk on the Moon'' (1999), and '' 28 Days'' (2000). Mortensen received international attention in the early 2000s for his role a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |