First published in 1559, the Diana was an immediate success with forty editions appearing during the 16th and 17th centuries in Spain, Antwerp and Italy.
Drawing its inspiration from Italian pastoral fiction, in particular Jacopo Sannazaro’s Arcadia, Jorge de Montemayor produced the first, and arguably the best, pastoral novel written in the Spanish language. First published in 1559, the Diana was an immediate success with forty editions appearing during the 16th and 17th centuries in Spain, Antwerp and Italy. Many scholars speculate that William Shakespeare drew on the novel’s interpolated tale of Felismena for the Proteus-Julia-Sylvia plot of The Two Gentlemen of Verona.