Argamasilla de Alba is a

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

in the Province of Ciudad Real, Castile-La Mancha,

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

. It has a population of 6,791. According to local legend, ''

Don Quixote , the full title being ''The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha'', is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Originally published in two parts in 1605 and 1615, the novel is considered a founding work of Western literature and is of ...

'' author

Miguel de Cervantes Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra ( ; ; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 Old Style and New Style dates, NS) was a Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-eminent novelist ...

was held prisoner here, and refers to the municipality in the prologue of ''

'' Part I, making a joke about imprisonment"engendered in a jail"because the word "argamasilla" is Spanish for " mortar". The text talks about it as the place where Don Quixote is buried, and that the "Academicians of Argamasilla" meet at the gravesite. Contrary to the foundation of the joke, Argamasilla de Alba has never had a group of academicians working there, and modern Cervantes scholars believe this is a reference to his well-documented imprisonment in the Cárcel Real of

Seville Seville ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Spain, Spanish autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the Guadalquivir, River Guadalquivir, ...

. José María Casasayas, founder of the Asociación de Cervantes, delivered a paper in 1999 in which he proposed that the town in Part I of the novel was Argamasilla de Alba, but in Part II, internal evidence suggests it was Argamasilla de Calatrava, a confusion deliberately created by Cervantes. The town's tourist and cultural office is located in a rebuilt house, the "Casa de Medrano", which contains beneath the "Cave of Medrano", in which Cervantes' imprisonment allegedly took place. In the nineteenth century, Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch had a printing press set up in the cave and printed there an edition of ''Don Quixote''. In keeping with the action of the novel's "Academicians of Argamasilla", the Asociación de Cervantistas held its annual meeting in Argamasilla de Alba in 1995, and returned for a meeting in 2005.''Perspectivas en los estudios cervantinos. (Homenaje a José María Casasayas).'' Ed. José Ramón Fernández de Cano y Martín. ''Cervantes'' 17.1 (1997): 4-180. Existen dos portadas, una con foto de Casasayas. En línea: .

Gallery

File:Argamasilla de Alba (512689709).jpg, Casa de Medrano, with signage ''Prision de Cervantes'' File:Casa de Medrano (Argamasilla de Alba).JPG, Interior of the Casa de Medrano File:Estatua de cervantes.JPG, Monument to Don Quixote, by Cayetano Hilario Abellán. File:Molino en argamasilla.JPG, Windmill

References

Municipalities in the Province of Ciudad Real Miguel de Cervantes {{CastileLaMancha-geo-stub