The Caballero de Gracia was an important figure of the Spanish Golden Age and of Madrid. Throughout his long life (102 years, of which more than 30 as a priest) he carried out a magnificent diplomatic, cultural and pastoral work in Madrid. His saintly life, however, has been overshadowed by an unfounded and fanciful legend.
This legend is based on two works written by Antonio Capmany y Montpalau in 1863, two and a half centuries after the death of the Knight. It is there that the legend is forged, which presents the Knight of Grace as a kind of "Don Juan Tenorio" who, after falling in love with several ladies, has a divine illumination - just as he is trying to seduce another woman - which prompts him to change his life. Capmany does not indicate where he gets this story from, nor does he cite any documentary source. Moreover, he seems to be unaware of the biography of Alonso Remón, a contemporary of the Knight.
The thing does not stop there. Some years later, Luis Mariano de Larra, son of Mariano José de Larra and composer of librettos for zarzuelas and dramas, will offer the same distorted version of Capmany in his work The Knight of Graceperformed in 1871. Also the zarzuela La Gran Vía, premiered in 1886, will project a pejorative image of the Caballero, by personifying the Madrid street of the Caballero through a cocky, womanizing and conceited character.
Angel Fernández de los Ríos, author of Guide to Madrid. Manual of the madrileño and the stranger. (1876), will also draw a grotesque image of the Knight, similar to that of Capmany. He is also the inventor of the reference to Jacobo Gratij as a "dissolute twin of Don Juan Tenorio"..
Carlos Cambroneo and Hilario Peñasco, authors of the book The streets of Madrid, will collect in 1889 the same phantasmagoric stories about this character. Finally, Pedro de Répide (+1948) will emphasize what Capmany spread in another book also titled The streets of Madrid.
In the face of this imaginary legend, the recently published biography The Knight of Grace. Life and legendby José María Sanabria and José Ramón Pérez Aranguena (Editorial Palabra), helps to disprove the fraudulent legend of Jacobo Gratij, which unfortunately has ended up slipping into three voices of Wikipedia. The authors of the biography rightly point out that "there is no data, testimony or document that accredits the slightest detail of what Capmany imagined".then voiced by the other authors mentioned above. "To call him an ambitious real estate speculator, and a libertine, a tenor, a Casanova, a seducer, or a terror of fathers and husbands, is a world away." of what the Knight of Grace really was. Rigorous historical research of his figure has not detected any libidinous slip in his career, something that has been documented in numerous characters of his time: emperors, popes, kings, cardinals, dukes, bishops... No documentary source speaks of the Caballero de Gracia as if he were a Miguel de Mañara, not even a man in love as was his friend Felix Lope de Vega. Nor is there any record that the Caballero had to "repent" of any misdeed or of leading a licentious lifestyle, as the aforementioned authors point out. And from the only trial to which he was subjected for money, his innocence was proven.
Historical testimonies coincide in this line. For example, Jerónimo de la Quintana (1570-1664), a contemporary of Caballero, points out in History of the antiquity, nobility and greatness of Madrid that "the man of noble birth Jacobo de Gratiis, founder of the Vble. Congregation of Unworthy Slaves of the Blessed Sacrament, was an eminent man in virtue and science and died at 102 years of age in the odor of sanctity". And Mesonero Romanos (1803-1882) also states that "The street of the Knight of Grace bears the title of the Knight of the Order of Christ Jacome or Jacobo de Gratiis, virtuous priest, born in Modena, who came to Spain with the Nuncio of His Holiness.".
Semblanza
Jacobo Gratij -the Caballero de Gracia after his surname was castellanized- was born in Modena (Italy) on February 24, 1517 and died in Madrid on May 13, 1619.
His biography is juicy and varied in events and initiatives. In Bologna, the best university of his time, he met John Baptist Castagna, who would become Pope Urban VII. From then on he would be his friend and confidant.
In 1550 he began to work for the Holy See. In 1551 he intervened in the peace treaty that put an end to the war between France, Venice and the Holy See on one side and Spain on the other. In 1563 he participated as a collaborator of Castagna in the third session of the Council of Trent, where the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist was discussed, which, perhaps, influenced the initiative of the Knight to found the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament.
Nunciature in Spain
From 1566 to 1572 he worked in the Nunciature of Spain with Cardinal Hugo Boncompagni, future Pope Gregory XIII; Felice Peretti, future Pope Sixtus V; and John Baptist Castagna, nuncio and, as mentioned above, future Urban VII. In those 7 years Jacobo was part of the papal delegation that intervened in transcendental contacts with the court of Philip II for the formation of the Holy League that went to the battle of Lepanto, for the war of the 80 years in Flanders, the wars of religion in France and for the resolution of the inquisitorial process against the cardinal of Toledo Bartolomé Carranza.
Jacobo felt at ease in Madrid. His good relationship with Princess Juana, sister of Philip II and mother of King Sebastian of Portugal, made her obtain from her son the highest Portuguese honorary distinction for Jacobo: to be a Knight of the Order of the Habit of Christ. Hence the name of Knight with which he has gone down in history.
Definitive return to Spain
After a period in Venice and then in Bologna, Jacopo returned to Spain at the end of 1575 with a delicate secret mission. For this purpose he was appointed protonotary apostolic. In 1583 he was accused of having taken advantage of his position in the nunciature and of having appropriated thirty thousand escudos. He was placed under house arrest and put on trial, but the accusations were soon proven false and he was absolved of all guilt. He forgave his accusers and offered to God the moral suffering he had endured. Gregory XIII, upon learning of this, praised the prudence and patience of his diplomat. Philip II congratulated him and also compensated him economically.
After carrying out another mission in Cologne, Jacopo returned to serve in the nunciature in Madrid until 1592. After the death of Pope Sixtus V, Giovanni Battista Castagna, his mentor, was elevated to the papal throne on September 15, 1590, but died on the 27th of the same month. The Knight could benefit little from the papal election of his friend.
Priestly ordination and foundations
Jacobo was ordained a priest in 1587 or 1588, at the age of 70. Before his ordination, he founded in 1571 the convent of Carmen calzado, in what is now the church of Carmen in Madrid. In 1581, while serving as nuncio, he founded the Hospital for Italians. From that same period is the Hospital for convalescents, promoted in collaboration with Blessed Bernardino de Obregón. Also that year he founded the Nuestra Señora de Loreto school for orphan girls.
In 1594 he founded in his own house the Convent of the Minor Clerics Regular of San Francisco Caracciolo. He then created the Congregation of the Slaves of the Blessed Sacrament, which was approved in 1609 by Cardinal Bernardo de Rojas y Sandoval of Toledo. Its purpose was and continues to be the diffusion of devotion to the Eucharist. About two thousand people belonged to it during the founder's lifetime.
The Caballero de Gracia was also a great promoter of culture, particularly in the musical and literary fields. The Blessed Obregón, Saint Simón de Rojas, Lope de Vega, Alonso Remón, Tirso de Molina and the young poet Gabriel Bocángel participated in his literary gatherings. Cervantes joined the Congregation of Esclavos del Olivar at the same time as the Caballero, and they must have attended the same meetings. The gathering was also attended by Andrés de Spínola and the Benedictine historian Prudencio de Sandoval, as well as Captain Calderón, Juan del Espada and Alonso Cedillo.
He had a more intense relationship with Lope de Vega, as he belonged to the Congregation of the Slaves of the Blessed Sacrament. At Christmas 1615, Lope had Riquelme's theater company, the best of the time, perform the sacramental auto sacramental Caballero de Gracia.
Death and fame of sanctity
The Knight died in the early morning of May 13, 1619 with a reputation for holiness. In the following 12 days, although in his will he had arranged for his funeral to be simple, many religious communities and numerous faithful celebrated funerals for his soul with the best preachers and great solemnity. His remains, after several transfers, are venerated in the Oratory of the Caballero de Gracia, on Madrid's Gran Vía.
