Miguel de Cervantes

Miguel De Cervantes (1547-1616) was born to a poor family in the town of Alcalá de Henares in Spain. After being educated in Madrid (where he was his schoolmaster's 'most beloved pupil') he went to Italy where it was not long before he volunteered for the army. Cervantes took part in the great naval battle of Lepanto (1571), when the Christian powers led by the Venetians defeated the Turks in the eastern Mediterranean. As a result he was wounded in the left hand which rendered it useless and earned him the title 'El Manco de Lepanto'. In 1575, while returning to Spain from another military expedition, he was captured by pirates and taken…