Francisco de Quevedo

Francisco de Quevedo (1580–1645) was a Spanish nobleman, politician and writer of the Baroque, and with Góngora one of the great poets of his age. Orphaned by six, lame from a club foot and short-sighted, the pince-nez he always wore gave Spanish the word quevedos.

The picaresque novel El Buscón made him famous. His style, conceptismo, stood against the ornate culteranismo of Góngora, whom he lampooned in the sonnet A una nariz for his nose. He took refuge with the Duke of Osuna, whom he served as secretary in Italy from 1613.

Osuna's fall in 1620 sent Quevedo into exile on his estate, where he wrote some of his best poetry. Back at court under Philip IV, he became royal secretary in 1632. In 1639 he was arrested and taken to the convent of San Marcos in León until 1643. He died on 8 September 1645.