The Dreamer of the Calle de San Salvador: Visions of Sedition and Sacrilege in Sixteenth-Century Spain

Lucrecia was a 19-year-old Madrilena when, in 1587, her dreams began to be recorded and published by a disaffected group of clerics. Over the next three years, they transcribed 400 of Lucrecia’s dreams, which they considered to be messages from God. The dreams warned of the defeat of the Armada, the death of King Philip II, the fall of Spain, and a new beginning under a new king. As some of her prophecies came true, she fell afoul of the authorities and was arrested by the Holy Order. This book includes 35 of Lucrecia’s most captivating dreams. The inventiveness of these visions are astonishing, while the stories that they tell are compelling and of immense historical interest. Roger Osborne weaves a commentary around each dream, which helps us to understand Lucrecia’s visions and the extraordinary time and place she inhabited.