JUAN DE JÁUREGUI Y AGUILAR. — Spanish poet and painter, of aristocratic family, born in Seville, where he was baptized on 24 Nov. 1583, died in Madrid in 1641. He was squire to Queen Elizabeth (wife of Philip IV) and knight of the Order of Calatrava.
He spent some time in Rome, deriving from it artistic and poetic inspiration (he copied works by Michelangelo, Raphael and Guido Reni; executed portraits; translated Tasso’s *Aminta* with excellence and began a free version of Lucan’s *Pharsalia*). Returning to Seville, he took a stand against
Jaricot, Pauline-Marie - Rirato.
Quevedo and Góngora, opposing them with a *Discurso poético* (Madrid 1624) and an *Antídoto contra las Soledades* (a manuscript exists in the National Library of Madrid); yet he was a friend of Lope de Vega and Cervantes, who praised his *Aminta*. His poetic output partly adhered to the Italianizing manner (Rimas, Seville 1618, which, alongside secular poems, contains some sacred lyrics such as *Al desposorio de Cristo con s. Teresa* and a paraphrase of Psalm 136), and partly followed the Gongorist fashion that J. y A. had in theory opposed; to Ovid, instead, he turned for his poem *Orfeo* (Madrid 1624).
As a writer, J. y A. interestingly documents the aesthetic taste of Spain at the start of the 17th century (cf., in particular, his *Dialogo entre la naturaleza y las artes, pintura y escultura* and *Por el arte de la pintura*, Madrid 1633); as a painter, besides several portraits (including the famous one of Cervantes, now in the Madrid Museum) and engravings for the *Vestigatio arcani sensus in Apocalypsi* (Antwerp 1619) by the Jesuit L. Alcázar, he left an engraving of the Venerable Luis de Granada and two canvases depicting St Joseph and St Teresa of Avila.