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488 Miguel José Deyá Bauzá

already noted. It was not only Barcelona, however. In Valencia, the
play was performed on the 3 and 4 of July 1790, on the 10 of
th
th
rd
December 1795, on the 7 of September 1796 and on the 30 of
th
th
August 1797 . In Seville, we know it was performed on the 24 of
62
th
August 1800, on the 11 of August 1806, on the 21 of January 1808,
st
th
on the 19 of May 1813, on the 29 and 30 of October 1814, on the
th
th
th
10 and 11 of June 1815 and on the 30 of November and 1 of
th
th
st
th
December 1816 .
63
This revival of Cañizares’s play appears to date from between 1775
and 1777, and should be seen in the context of foreign relations
between Spain and North African powers of that period. Although
during the reign of Charles III various peace treaties were signed – one
with Morocco (1766) and another with the Sublime Porte (the
64
Ottoman Empire, in 1782) – relations with Algeria are best
characterised as guerre couverte, an undeclared war against the
corsairs based there. Piracy was so prevalent it had led to the near
collapse of navigation in the Western Mediterranean, endangering the
interests of the Balearic Archipelago and much of the Spanish
Levantine coast. The punitive strike by Spain in 1775 against Algiers,
the same year when according to our sources the play was performed
for the first time in Barcelona , was a total disaster that led to many
65
complaints and a wave of vicious satires that brought about the
66
dismissal of the Marquis of Grimaldi. Against this background,
Cañizares’s play could be seen as a useful piece of propaganda, and
government ministers were not unaware of the power of the theatre in
this respect. It presented a king who happened to have the same name
as the current King of Spain as victor over the Muslim enemy . The
67
fact that Charles V’s victory was in Tunis and not in Algiers wasn’t of
much importance: what mattered was the defeat of an infidel pirate,
Barbarossa, at that time known as the King of Algiers, and therefore
the embodiment of Algerian piracy. However, the confrontation

62 A. Zabala, El teatro en la Valencia de finales del siglo XVIII, Institució Alfons el
Magnànim, Valencia, 1982, p. 285.
63 F. Aguilar, Cartelera prerromántica sevillana. Años 1800-1836, «Cuadernos
Bibliográficos», 22 (1968), p. 15.
64 This treaty did not prevent the war with Morocco of 1774 which had a considerable
influence on the decision by Spain to attack Algiers in 1775. E. Villalba, O’Reilly y la
expedición de Argel (1775). Sátiras para un fracaso, in A. Guimerá, V. Peralta (eds.), El
equilibro de los Imperios, Fundación Española de Historia Moderna, Madrid, 2005, p.
571.
65 The other two expeditions took place in 1783 and 1784.
66 E. Villalba, O’Reilly cit.
67 Jovellanos appreciated the value of history to nurture patriotism among the
public, J.M. Caso, Notas sobre la comedia histórica en el siglo XVIII, in Coloquio
Internacional sobre el teatro español del siglo XVIII, Piovan Editore, Padua, 1988, p. 129.
Mediterranea - ricerche storiche - Anno XVII - Agosto 2020
ISSN 1824-3010 (stampa) ISSN 1828-230X (online)