Calderón's Man in Mexico: The Mexican Source of El gran duque de Gandia

In 1640, the Mexican Jesuit Matías Bocanegra wrote La comedia de San Francisco de Borja to celebrate the arrival of a new viceroy. In the spring of 1671, Calderón wrote El gran duque de Gandía to celebrate the canonization of St. Francis Borgia. Both plays had long been thought lost; Bocanegra's came to light in 1953 and Calderón's in 1958. Both plays deal with the same historical figures and depend upon the same sources to a degree. But it is the similarity of dramatic technique, the identity of fictitious personages and the similar structure in both dramas that are persuasive indications that Calderón used Bocanegra's work extensively. Circumstances and need dictated this borrowing, although Calderón recast the work In his own inimitable language and style and heightened the sub plot by borrowing from another Jesuit source, Calleja. (TH)