y birth, and early enjoyed a reputation as a man of letters.
In 1591 he became a member of a local literary academy called the
_Nocturnos_. At one time a captain of the coast-guard, at another the
protege of Benavente, viceroy of Naples, who appointed him governor of
Scigliano, patronized by Osuna and Olivares, Castro was nominated a
knight of the order of Santiago in 1623. He settled at Madrid in 1626,
and died there on the 28th of July 1631 in such poverty that his funeral
expenses were defrayed by charity. He probably made the acquaintance of
Lope de Vega at the festivals (1620-1622) held to commemorate the
beatification and canonization of St Isidore, the patron saint of
Madrid. On the latter occasion Castro's _octavas_ were awarded the first
prize. Lope de Vega dedicated to him a celebrated play entitled _Las
Almenas de Toro_ (1619), and when Castro's _Comedias_ were published in
1618-1621 he dedicated the first volume to Lope de Vega's daughter. The
drama that has made Castro's reputation is _Las Mocedades del Cid_
(1599?), to the first part of which Corneille was largely indebted for
the materials of his tragedy. The two parts of this play, like all those
by Castro, have the genuine ring of the old _romances_; and, from their
intense nationality, no less than for their primitive poetry and flowing
versification, were among the most popular pieces of their day. Castro's
_Fuerza de la costumbre_ is the source of _Love's Care_, a play ascribed
to Fletcher. He is also the reputed author of _El Prodigio de los
Montes_, from which Calderon derived _El Magico prodigioso_.

_Las Mocedades del Cid_ (Toulouse, 1890) and _Ingratitud de amor_
(Philadelphia, 1899) have been well edited by E. Merimee and H.A.
Rennert respectively.

CASTRUCCIO CASTRACANI DEGLI ANTELMINELLI (1281-1328), duke of Lucca, was
by birth a Lucchese, and by descent and training a Ghibelline. Being
exiled at an early age with his parents and others of their faction by
the Guelphs, then in the ascendant, and orphaned at nineteen, he served
as a _condottiere_ under Philip IV. of France in Flanders, later with
the Visconti in Lombardy, and in 1313 under the Ghibelline chief,
Uguccione della Faggiuola, lord of Pisa, in central Italy. He assisted
Uguccione in many enterprises, including the capture of Lucca (1314) and
the victory over the Florentines at Montecatini (1315). An insurrection
of the Lucchese having led to the expulsion of Uguccione an