The writer Baltasar Gracián y Morales was born on January 8, 1601 in the town of Belmonte de Gracián, a town in the province of Zaragoza located next to Calatayud.
Not much information is available regarding Baltasar’s childhood years. It is known that in 1617 he went to reside in Toledo, where he had a chaplain uncle, with whom he spent one or two years, studying logic and the Latin language.
In 1619 he moved to Tarragona to enter a novitiate, and in 1621 he traveled to Calatayud, where he studied Philosophy, to continue later, at the University of Zaragoza, theology studies. He was ordained a priest in 1627.
From then on it begins to work as a professor of Humanities at the Colegio de Calatayud. At the age of three he was transferred to the Jesuits of Valencia, with whom he had several confrontations. The following year he was transferred again, this time to the city of Lleida, as professor of Moral Theology. In 1633 he was sent to Gandía, again to the Jesuits, with whom he again had problems.
In 1636 he fixed his residence in the city of Huesca, as a priest, and the following year he published his work “The hero”. He began to frequent the literary meetings that Vincencio Juan de Lastanosa organized in his palace, which allowed him to make friends with a good number of intellectuals of the time.
In 1639 he was appointed confessor of the viceroy of Aragon, which forces him to move to the Court, which is not to his liking. Despite this, at this time he published his two following works, “The politician” Y “Art of Ingenuity, a treatise on acuity”.
In 1642 he was sent to Tarragona, where he remained until 1644. It is the time of the so-called Uprising of Catalonia, and the serious events make Baltasar ill, who is admitted to a hospital in Valencia, where he writes his next work, “The Discreet”.
When he leaves the hospital, he goes to Huesca again, where he publishes “Manual oracle and art of prudence” Y “Sharpness and art of wit”.
In 1650 he was transferred to Zaragoza, and in 1651 he published the first part of “The Criticón”, Considered his masterpiece. Despite the complaints of the Jesuits, he soon published the second part, seeing the light of the third in 1657. All this angered the Jesuits even more, and at the beginning of the following year the writer was sent to Graus, a small town located in the Pyrenees of Huesca.
Gracián tries to change religious company, but he is not allowed, although the punishment is lifted in April of the same year, being sent to Tarazona.
On December 6 of this same year 1658, Baltasar Gracián dies in Tarazona.