Identification of a Narrative Source of Fletcher, Massinger, and Field's The Knight of Malta in Cervantes's Don Quixote

Abstract

TOWARDS the end of The Knight of Malta by John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, and Nathan Field (c. 1618),1 the character named Collonna throughout the play suddenly reveals that his true name is Angelo, and that he is a Florentine who was captured during the invasion of the island of Gozo (north of Malta; historically in 1551), in which ‘the Turk bore with him three thousand soules’ (5.2.166), and was subsequently taken to Constantinople as an enslaved captive. There he met a ‘Turkish Damosell’, Lucinda, whose soul, ‘prophan’d with infidelity’ (171), he laboured to attract to the Christian faith, finally succeeding in securing her betrothal and her renegation of Islam. Both had fled from Constantinople, ‘and in that flight were taen againe / By those same Gallies, fore Valetta fought’ (17601–77). The lovers were thus separated, and Angelo served a term in the galleys, keeping his identity secret after being released. This sudden revelation, apparently unforeseen by Lucinda, occurs in the space of twenty lines of verse (161–80), almost at the end of the play.