Spain reburies Cervantes, nearly 400 years after Don Quixote author's death

The presumed remains of writer and former soldier Miguel de Cervantes, found in a convent this year, were given full honours at a ceremony in Madrid

Ana Botella speaks at the reburial of Miguel de Cervantes. The plaque reads: ‘Time is brief, anxieties grow, hopes diminish and, with this, I carry out my life with my desire to live.’ Photograph: Andrea Comas/Reuters

Associated Press in Madrid

Thursday 11 June 2015  The Guradian

Spain gave its greatest writer, Miguel de Cervantes, a formal burial on Thursday nearly 400 years after his death, unveiling a funeral monument holding recently unearthed bone fragments believed to include those of the author of Don Quixote.

The mayor of Madrid, Ana Botella, placed a laurel wreath at the foot of the monument in a Madrid convent in a ceremony that included military honours since Cervantes, considered the Shakespeare of Spanish letters, had also been a soldier for Spain.

The bones were dug up this year by experts after a near-yearlong search at the convent where Cervantes was known to have been buried in 1616. More