I was thinking recently that the inventor of the modern novel, Cervantes, was an Italianphile and he lived in Naples for more than 2 years. He used the word ‘Novela’ by Italian influence (‘Novella’) which is odd as Italians do not use the word any longer. https://twitter.com/nachooliveras/status/1127946523734618112?s=21

Cervantes had a really interesting life. When he was 22, he went to Italy as a servant of the priest Giulio Acquaviva, who would later go to become a cardinal. It is not very clear under which circumstances, but it seems he escaped Spain after blessing an aristocrat on a duel...

In 1571 he enrolled to fight the Turks in Lepanto (the picture by the Veronese). In that battle a bullet seems to have cut one of the nerves of his left hand, that became useless (he did save the hand, though). He was justly proud of his ‘feat of arms’ for the rest of his life...

Following that battle he lived in Italy for 4 years, half of these in Naples. He probably became acquitted here to the ‘Orlando furioso’ by Ariosto, that is repeatedly cited in ‘Don Quixote’. Cervantes’ novel ‘El licenciado Vidriera’ can be read almost as a travel guide to Italy.

In 1575, coming back to Spain, he was captured by Berber pirates, who infested the Catalan coast by that time, near Cadaqués. He spent 5 years as a slave, most of them in Algiers, and after a frustrated escape attempt, the rest of the time in Constantinople. He was freed in 1580.

His ransom was set at 500 gold ducats, that in modern money would probably be several dozen of thousands of euros. Cervantes and his family became indebted for years after paying this considerable sum, and he hold many jobs (‘intelligence’ officer, commissions for the army, etc).

On top of that he married and had a daughter out of wedlock (with whom he would have a good relationship the rest of his life) and wrote his first book: ‘La Galatea’. He became also a purchasing agent for the Spanish navy that would unsuccessfully try to invade Britain in 1588...

He would spend the next 10 years in Seville until he went bankrupt in a shady situation. He may have borrowed some of the money he had levied in taxes in order to do some business that didn’t work out well and he was imprisoned, albeit not for a long time. https://twitter.com/nachooliveras/status/1074221109375991809?s=21

As per his admission, ‘Don Quixote’ would be conceived (‘engendrado’) in the prison of Seville in 1597, although the novel would not appear until 1605, having passed censorship and found a printing house in Valladolid, where he moved in 1604. Don Quixote met considerable success.

It is documented that Shakespeare, Cervantes contemporary, read Don Quixote first part. In 1608 Cervantes moved to Madrid, and he was a neighbor of Lope and Quevedo, he corresponded at least with the former. In 1613 he published Don Quixote closing chapter. He died there in 1616.

It is interesting to note that Cervantes life was very unusual and sort of ‘ergodic’ to his time (Spain’s “Siglo de Oro”). Please understand here ergodicity as the property by which a single unit (here Cervantes) is representative for the ensamble average. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergodicity 

Although after some research, his life would not be perfectly ergodic, though, as the ‘extremes’ or tails were of higher weight in his life than the averages. E.g. Spain had by then 5 million inhabitants, and some 50000 slaves, ~1% of the population. Cervantes was a slave for 5Y.

That would be almost 10% of his existence. 80% of the population of Spain were serfs, peasants and the such. Cervantes was in ‘Mediocristan’ but not for a long time (say the time he would spend at Acquaviva’s service). The bulk of his life he would have spent in the top 20%...

Most of it in the upper middle class, although he was never rich and he struggled for money until the very end, in spite of Don Quixote’s success. But considering the experiences a citizen of the Mediterranean of that era could have had, he had them all (war, prison, success...).