Lope de Vega's Drawing of the Monte Stage Set

The physical appearance and placement of the stage décor used to represent mountains for performances in Golden Age corrales has puzzled modern comedia scholars. Their analyses of textual evidence of the period (stage directions, repair documents, account books) have resulted in a series of hypothetical models of the monte. This essay introduces graphic evidence against which these hypotheses can be tested: a drawing by Lope de Vega in the autograph manuscript of El cardenal de Belén (signed 27 August 1610) which illustrates a stage direction that calls for two montes. This marginal sketch is the only known seventeenth-century illustration of the intended appearance of a corral stage during a performance and deserves the same prominence that has been accorded to illustrations of the staging of court performances in histories of the Spanish Golden Age theater.