ABSTRACT
Although the principle of exclusive definition formulated by E.H. Gombrich allows us to define the classicism of the Spanish Renaissance as not Plasteresque or not Baroque, it is rather difficult to propose a positive definition common to a series of authors prior to Cervantes or Góngora who all share an ideal of llaneza [simplicity], pureza [purity] and mesura [measure]. The notion of a Spanish or Hispanic classical age was developed from the beginning of the eighteenth century, starting both from theoretical positions which took up criticisms directed against the Baroque authors from the seventeenth century and from new editions of the main ‘classical’ authors. The word ‘classic’, however, was originally used in Spanish by seventeenth-century authors such as Paravicino and Gracián in connection with the poetry of Garcilaso de la Vega and the prose of Mateo Alemán—which was obscured by eighteenth-century critics. If the classical ideal was formulated during the sixteenth century under the pen of learned writers, trained by humanism and often eager to realize a Platonic Ideal, it can only be understood as the affirmation of an effort to overcome the unquietness that haunted Renaissance classicism.
