Fernando de Rojas (c. 1465, La Puebla de Montalbán, New Castile (now Toledo) - April 1541, Talavera de la Reina, Spain) was a Castilian author who probably went to the University of Salamanca. He was a converso, a Jew converted to Christianity. He is known for writing La Celestina (originally titled Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea) in 1499. Events July 13 - Battle of Montlhéry Troops of King Louis XI of France fight inconclusively against an army of the great nobles organized as the League of the Public Weal. ... New Castile (Spanish: Castilla la Nueva) was the southern part of the Kingdom of Castile in central Spain, taken during the reconquista of the peninsula by Christian kings from Muslim rulers. ... The façade of Toledo cathedral Toledo is a city located in central Spain, the capital of the province of Toledo and of the autonomous community of Castile-La Mancha. ... Events The first official translation of the entire Bible in Swedish February 12 - Pedro de Valdivia founds Santiago de Chile. ... Talavera de la Reina is a city in the western part of the province of Toledo, which in turn is part of the autonomous community of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain. ... The University of Salamanca (Spanish Universidad de Salamanca), located in the town of Salamanca, west-northwest of Madrid, is the second oldest university in Spain (the first one is the university of Palencia, now disappeared), and one of the oldest in Europe. ... Spanish for converted one, converso (feminine conversa) referred to Jews or Muslims or the descendants of Jews or Muslims who had converted, sometimes unwillingly, to Catholicism in Spain, particularly during the 1300s and 1400s. ... Christianity is a monotheistic religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus as recounted in the New Testament. ... The Celestina (used as title, synecdoche, one of the characters of the book actually called Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea or Libro de Calisto y Melibea y de la puta vieja Celestina) is a book published anonymously by the bachelor Fernando de Rojas ( about whom we know little ) in 1499. ...

External links

• La Celestina, available freely at Project Gutenberg