Catorce hijos y una sola vihuela: la familia Daza de Valladolid

Abstract

Archives in Valladolid hold documents from the sixteenth-century concerning the vihuelist Esteban Daza and over fifty members of his family. Inasmuch as the documents permit, this study recreates the vihuelist’s family environment, particularly the lives of his thirteen siblings and the urban context in which his music flourished. Apparently the only musician of the family, the study offers an unusual example of a Spanish Renaissance musician and his daily life. It provides details of the houses where the family lived and of the chapel they established in the church of San Benito, details of its foundation in 1537 and continued existence until at least 1807. It is the story of a well-to-do bourgeois family that reached its peak in the days of the vihuelist’s grandparents and that managed to dissipate its wealth and almost completely extinguish itself during the course of the century.