New Light on Juan Bautista Diamante

Notes and References

1. Emilio Cotarelo y Mori, "Don Juan Bautista Diamante y sus comedias", Boletín de la Real Academia Española, III (1916), 272-97 and 454-97.

3. Diogo Barbosa Machado, Bibliotheca Lusitana, Histórica, Crítica e Cronológica (Lisbon, 1741-59), II, 598:

Ioao Baptista Diamante, nacido em Castella de Pay Espanhol qual foy Iacome Diamante, e de May Portugueza, Caualleiro da Ordem militar de malta, e hum dos mais celebres Poetas Cómicos, que florescerao no seculo passado. Foy insigne em todas as Artes dignas de hum Caualhero distinguindo-se no jogo das Armas, e manejo dos Cávalos ...

4. Nicolás Antonio Nicolás, Bibliotheca Hispana nova (Madrid, 1788), I, 646.

5. Ramón Mesonero Romanos, in his Introduction to Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, XLIX (Madrid, 1859), vii:

Sábese únicamente que procedía de una ilustre familia portuguesa, y aun los escritores de aquella nación creen que él mismo nació en ella, aunque siguió a la corte de Madrid, en cuyos teatros y en los de Lisboa se representaron con grande aplauso sus comedias escritas en lengua castellana ...

7. Cayetano Alberto de la Barrera y Leirado, Catálogo bibliográfico y biográfico del teatro antiguo español (Madrid, 1860), 123.

8. Latour had asked the author of the recently published Catálogo bibliográfico y biográfico del teatro antiguo español for more information about Diamante in pursuit of his defence of Pierre Corneille against accusations of plagiarism. La Barrera obliged by supplying Latour with the partial transcript of a trial involving the playwright, from which Latour reproduced (in translation) the following interrogatory:

En la ville de Alcala de Hénarès, le vingtième jour du mois de septembre 1648, en vertu d'un ordre du seigneur recteur, moi, notaire, je me présentai à la prison des étudiants de cette université, en laquelle je fis comparaître devant moi don Juan-Bautista Diamante, écolier en la dite université et détenu dans la susdite prison, de qui je reçus le serment devant Dieu et sur une croix qu'il promettait de dire la vérité, et lui demandai ce qui suit:

Lui ayant demandé comment il se nomme, quel âge il a, quelle est sa condition et où il est né;

A quoi il répond qu'il se nomme don Juan-Bautista Diamante, qu'il est étudiant de cette université et sousdiacre, qu'il est né dans la ville de Madrid et qu'il a vingt-deux ans, a quelque chose près.

Et moi, notaire, ayant vérifié que ledit Juan-Bautista a moins de vingt-cinq ans et plus de quatorze, je le préviens et le requiers d'avoir à se nommer un procureur au procès qui puisse assister à son interrogatoire.

Responding to a follow-up enquiry, La Barrera added (in Latour's translation) this comment:

L'identité de Juan-Bautista Diamante, sous-diacre en 1648 ... et de Diamante, écrivain dramatique, me fut démontrée jusqu'à l'évidence par cette double observation, d'une part, que Barbosa Machado déclare expressément que le poète était fils de Jacome Diamante, Espagnol, et d'une mère Portugaise, et d'autre part, que le clerc mis en cause était bien le fils de Jacome Diamante et de sa première femme Magdalena de Acosta ('da Costa', portugais), comme il ressort de nombreux documents qui figurent au procès ...

9. Antoine de Latour, "Pierre Corneille et Jean-Baptiste Diamante", Le Correspondant, 25 June 1861. Also published separately (Paris, 1861, 15 pp.), and included in Latour's l'Espagne réligieuse et littéraire (Paris, 1863), 113-44. The extracts reproduced here are on pp. 131 and 133 of the latter work.

10. For a full bibliography on this question see Loïs Strong, Bibliography of Franco-Spanish literary Relations (New York, 1930), 39-44. Voltaire, in his Commentaires sur Corneille, was the principal accuser, but numerous critics rushed to the French playwright's defence, though without being able to supply, like Latour, definitive proof.

12. The discrepancy between this last name and La Barrera's Magdalena de Acosta (or, as he suggests, da Costa in the original Portuguese) seems not to have been noticed by Cotarelo, even though he refers to Latour's article on p. 290 and undoubtedly, as evidenced by a footnote on p. 285, had access to La Barrera's notes.

13. The Amonestaciones are dated 18, 19, 26 Oct 1631, the Desposorio 30 Nov 1631, and the Velación 25 July 1633, ie two days after the birth of their first-born, Pablo.

... nació en Messina poco despues de 1594, y ganoso de ver mundo, dejó su tierra, saliendo como aventurero en la armada española destinada a Portugal, no en 1625, como afirma en las pruebas del hábito de su hijo don Pablo Diamante, el anciano Conde de Chinchón, sino algunos años antes, si es que hubo de tener tiempo de hacer el servicio, casarse en Portugal, como quiere Barbosa Machado, y venir a residir en Madrid, donde positivamente se hallaba ya en el dicho año de 1625

The Count of Chinchón was not however alone in asserting that Jácome left Sicily in 1625. It is affirmed by three other witnesses (nos. 2 and 4 in Pablo's pruebas, and no. 10 in those of Francisco), and comes originally from Jácome's own claims made in the pruebas of 1653.

15. Blanca had two sisters also called Ferel (later Herrera): María (as María Ferel) was godmother to Pablo Diamante in July 1633, as well as Blanca's sponsor (as María 'de Herrera', alongside her father, Francisco Rodríguez 'de Herrera') at her velación two days later. Ana was godmother to Jácome Diamante junior in October 1634, and María to Mateo Diamante in January 1636, and Francisco Diamante in August 1642. María was born apparently in 1606, but no trace of either woman's baptism is to be found in the registers of San Ginés, unless the falsified partida of Baltasar Rodríguez was originally that of his sister, Ana.

16. Blanca's brother, Baltasar Rodríguez, along with María Ferel, her sister, were Pablo Diamante's godparents in July 1633. Baltasar is also named as a witness at Blanca's desposorio in November 1631 and at Jácome Diamante junior's baptism in October 1634. What purports to be his baptismal record in the registers of San Ginés for 1600 is in fact a crude forgery, where the name 'Balthasar' has been superimposed over an earlier Ana.

17. In a later summary of the case, the nephew is named as 'Francisco Diamanti'. He was not of course a Diamante, but the son of Blanca's sister Ana, a widow by 1653 (see also note 15 above).

18. Juan Bautista, Pablo and Jácome were all students at Alcalá by this time. Mateo joined the class of 'Minores' at Alcalá at the age of 12 in August 1648, and the 'Mediastini' in November of the same year; but he was not a canonista until 1652, and it is therefore doubtful if the term 'estudiante' would apply to him in February 1651, the date of Manuela López's testimony.

Los portugueses - se decía - habían azotado a la imagen de Cristo y hasta les había preguntado por qué le ultrajaban de aquella forma. El hecho, propalado por los niños de una escuela a la que iban algunos hijos de aquella mísera gente, hizo que pronto cayeran en prisión varias mujeres y hombres ... Andaba la chiquillería de Madrid cantando coplas contra los acusados, y el pánico entre los portugueses, llegados en masa de todo Portugal, en 1631, debió ser enorme.

20. See Juan Gómez de Mora, Auto de la Fe celebrado en Madrid este año de 1632.

21. The first attempt to provide Blanca with a 'clean' certificate of baptism having failed, a new version (with different godparents and witnesses) was inserted at a later date – coincidentally occupying the verso of a leaf containing the playwright's mother's equally fraudulent partida. For some reason the original record was not removed, leaving Blanca in the anomalous position of having been baptized twice in the same church.

22. Cotarelo (p. 285), guessing, places this event before 1656; but Fernándaz de Bethéncourt gives the date of his admission to the Order as 4 June 1660. This date is borne out in a codicil of 1 June 1660 to the will of Jácome Diamante.

23. By the time of their application to join the Order of Montesa in 1687 Pablo was Corregidor of Chinchilla, and Francisco a royal secretary. Pablo would go on to become 'Alcalde de los Hijosdalgo, Alcalde del Crimen y Oidor de la Real Chancillería de Granada, Alcalde de Casa y Corte de Su Majestad, Consultor del Santo Oficio de la Inquisición y Ministro del Consejo Supremo de Hacienda' (Fernández de Bethéncourt). Alvarez y Baena, Hijos ilustres de Madrid (Madrid, 1789-91), IV, 147, also has an article on Pablo.

24. Fernándaz de Bethéncourt, Historia genealógica y heráldica de la monarquía española, III (Madrid, 1897), 354, informs us in a footnote that Jácome Diamante, 'Alférez de la Armada Real en 1625', married for the first time 'Doña Magdalena de Castro y Vargas' and that his son, 'Don Juan Bautista Diamante y Castro ... hizo pruebas de nobleza para su ingreso en la Orden de Malta, que fueron aprobadas por la Asamblea de la misma el 4 de Junio de 1660.'

25. A member of the Order testified in 1694 to having heard Jácome bewail his son's expulsion from San Felipe. (Jácome died in 1660.) In addition, the mother of Tomasa de Mesa, in a letter dated August 1660 concerning her daughter's forthcoming - and highly reluctant! - betrothal to Mateo refers to his admission to the Order as a past event.

26. Mateo also appears to have spent some time as a member of the Royal Horse Guard (known as "the Lancers") before again getting involved in more trouble which led to his banishment from Madrid. A witness recalling these events in 1694 put Mateo's erratic behaviour down to domestic friction (see the correspondence referred to in note 25 above) and indeed "no se pudo reduzir a persuadirse" that Mateo's later trouble with the Inquisition "fuesse por ser de raiz infecta sino es por sus locuras y desbarates."

27. In September 1636 it was a 'tienda de mercería' at the Puerta del Sol and in August 1660 a 'tienda de todos gen(er)os'. In February 1651 the house and shop were 'enfrente del Correo Maior' and a document dated December 1663 places them in the Calle Mayor 'enfrente de las cassas del S(eño)r Conde de oñatte y con puertta y tiendas que salen a la Calle de las postas'.

28. Blanca refers to Jácome her son as alive in her will of February 1658; but Jácome senior, in his will of February 1660, uses a phrase ('en casso que por ser difunto ttenga heredero') which suggests his son may by then be dead (though the phrase is slightly ambiguous). A document dated August 1660 refers, however, to Mateo's 'hermano el alcalde maior de leon' which may just conceivably be Jácome junior.

29. Francisco's Informaciones genealógicas have not survived, but some of the documents included in the corresponding Inquisitional file relating to Pablo Diamante are copies of those made for Francisco's candidature, begun at the same time as Pablo's.

30. Caro Baroja, La sociedad criptojudía en la corte de Felipe IV (discurso publicado por la Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, 1963).

La masa de cristianos nuevos judaizantes llamados por antonomasia 'portugueses', fue siempre grande y éstos salieron y entraron de continuo del reino vecino. Sin embargo, se advierte que a partir de la anexión de aquel realizada por Felipe II, estos conversos portugueses entran en mayores cantidades en España, llegando a constituir una verdadera clase o sector de la sociedad en tiempos de Felipe IV ...

32. The baptismal record stands on a page which has been substituted for the original. In the case of the marriage banns, two folios were excised and replaced by a double leaf – cf. expert testimony given to the Inquisitors of Toledo in 1694. In fact (see note 21 above) this is Blanca's 'second' partida.

33. The marriage record - like Magdalena and Blanca's partidas de bautismo - stands on a page which has been substituted for the original.

34. Two separate folios (165 and 166) were excised from the 21st Libro de Bautismos in San Ginés and their place taken by a double folio removed from a later book (printed with a type which did not come into use until 1629). Both the stumps of the original, and the thread with which the new pages were sewn into place, are still clearly visible.

35. Diamanti is of course the Italianized form of a Greek name, the precise form of which is uncertain. Miguel de Salazar, Obras, V, fol. 346 (MS. 12.594 in the Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid) (cited by García Carrafa, Diccionario Heráldico y Genealógico de Apellidos Españoles y Americanos (Madrid, 1919-52), III, 222), states: "el Origen de este apellido de Diamante es de Grecia de la Ciudad de Coro, y su pronunciación propia era Adamanden." In this connection the Family Education Network's NameLab entry under 'Diamond' is of some interest:

Jewish (Ashkenazic): Americanized form of a Jewish surname, spelled in various ways, derived from modern German Diamant, Demant 'diamond', or Yiddish dime(n)t, going back to Middle High German diemant (via Latin from Greek adamas 'unconquerable', genitive adamantos, a reference to the hardness of the stone). The name is mostly ornamental, one of the many Ashkenazic surnames based on mineral names, though in some cases it may have been adopted by a jeweler.

36. Theodore Reinach, Histoire des Israélites, p. 225, refers to the sudden growth of the Jewish communities in the Morea after the conquest of the latter by the Venetians in 1516.