VALDIVIELSO, José de. — Spanish poet, b. in Toledo c. 1560, d. in Madrid on 19 June 1638.
A priest and chaplain, first to Cardinal Bernardo de Sandoval y Rojas of Toledo and later to Cardinal-Infante Don Fernando of Austria, he poured his sense of the divine into delightful lyrics in which theological doctrine, intense piety, and popular simplicity merge into a sweet synthesis that recalls the enchantment of Murillo’s religious paintings. With accents of particular tenderness he evoked the mysteries of the Nativity and the Passion; he celebrated Eucharistic events in the Romancero espiritual del S. Sacramento (1612) and in the Doze autos sacramentales, which form the connecting link between the early autos and Calderón. The poetic tension is more uneven in the Vida, excelencias y muerte del glorioso primer patriarca S. José (1602).
VALDO and WALDENSES — Last part of the profession of Catholic faith by Peter Waldo and his followers (1179–84) and beginning of the Liber antiferesis, a Waldensian work written against the Cathar dualism, Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, ms. 1114, fol. 2r (late 12th century).
(by courtesy of Fr. A. Donadini, O.P.)
He also wrote a poem entitled Sagrario de Toledo (1616), another on the miracles of St. Ildefonso, and, at the request of Philip III and the Cardinal-Infante, the Exposición parafrástica del Psalterio y cánticos del Breviario (1623). He comforted the dying Lope de Vega and was a friend of Cervantes.