A detailed study of the private boxes of Madrid's first permanent playhouse

The Corral de la Cruz (1579-1736) is the less well known of Madrid's Golden Age playhouses. This latest volume in Tamesis's Fuentes series is a detailed study of one of its most distinctive features: the boxes, or aposentos, fromwhich the privileged and powerful, including Philip IV, witnessed the premieres of so many plays by Lope de Vega, Calderon and others. These boxes were rooms overlooking the yard, but were situated in private houses outside the walls of the playhouse, with independent access. Their structure and history are traced here through a substantial corpus of new documents containing information on the location, structure, dimensions, owners, lessees and users of the boxes and the houses, as well as the vexed question of payment for viewing rights. This provides an indispensable basis for the reconstruction of the first permanent theatre in the Spanish capital, in both its architectural andsocioeconomic aspects.

CHARLES DAVIS is a Ramon y Cajal Research Fellow at the University of Valencia and Honorary Research Fellow of Queen Mary, University of London.

El Corral de la Cruz (1579-1736) es elmenos conocido de los dos corrales de comedias madrilenos. Este ultimo tomo de las Fuentes de Tamesis es un estudio pormenorizado de uno de sus elementos mas caracteristicos: los aposentos, o palcos, desde donde los espectadoresmas privilegiados, entre ellos el propio Felipe IV, presenciaban los estrenos de tantas obras de Lope de Vega, Calderon y otros. Eran habitaciones que daban al patio, pero estaban situadas en casas particulares fuera de las medianerias del teatro, con entradas independientes. Se traza aqui su historia y estructura a traves de un nutrido corpus documental que ofrece nuevos datos sobre la ubicacion, estructura, medidas, propietarios, inquilinos y usuarios delos aposentos y las casas.