Una nota sobre la cazuela alta del Corral del Principe

In his excellent book on The Reconstruction of a Spanish Golden Age Playhouse, J.J. Allen concludes that the top floor of the facade building of the Corral del Príncipe was roughly divided into two halves; on the right-hand side, facing the stage, was the tertulia and on the left-hand side, divided from the tertulia by a thin partition, was the cazuela alta. Allen's solution is a compromise designed to resolve an apparent contradiction in the documentary evidence available to him. On the one hand, the Armona sketch (1730) shows that this space was occupied exclusively by the tertulia, on the other hand, dozens of seventeenth-century documents mention the existence of a cazuela baja and a cazuela alta in the facade building. This article proposes another solution, based on a document dated 15 July 1695 and signed by Juan Suárez de Somoza, one of the two lessees of the corrales for the period 1695-1699. (JMRDLH)