Mallorca initiates the declaration as a BIC of a letter signed by Cervantes

The Insular Council of Mallorca has initiated the proceedings to declare the “Payment letter with the autograph signature of Miguel de Cervantes,” signed in Seville on July 8, 1593, as an Asset of Cultural Interest (BIC). The agreement, numbered 9282, was adopted by the Insular Commission of Historical Heritage of Mallorca in the session of July 28, 2026, and is published in the Official Gazette of the Balearic Islands (BOIB) no. 116, of September 17, 2026, within Section III.

The initiation is based on the technical report of July 17, 2026, and on articles 7 and following of Law 12/1998, of December 21, on the Historical Heritage of the Balearic Islands. The agreement was electronically signed on September 14, 2026, by the secretary of the Commission, Miguel Barceló Llompart, and the final text remains subject to the terms resulting from the approval of the minutes.

While the processing lasts, the asset remains subject to the protection regime provided for assets already declared, in accordance with article 8.2 of the same law: any intervention must be previously authorized by the Insular Commission of Historical Heritage.

A payment letter of 600 silver rales

The document is a payment letter in which Cervantes declares to have received 600 silver rales as salary for sixty days of work for Andrés de Cerio in the so-called Isunza commission. According to the technical sheet of the annex:

• Denomination: Payment letter with the autograph signature of Miguel de Cervantes.
• Type of asset: movable; type of object: handwritten document.
• Date and place: July 8, 1593, Seville.
• Support: laid paper with watermark, written on both sides.
• Dimensions: 31.4 x 20 centimeters.
• Current owner: Margarita María Cassasayas Ladaria.

It is the original master deed of the protocol of the public notary of Seville Luis de Porras from the year 1593, kept in the Provincial Historical Archive of Seville. The master is referenced in the index bundle of deeds no. 18,638, corresponding to the second book of this notary; in the notebook to which the index refers (foliated from 386 to 393, plus 9 unnumbered), page 390, where the document was, appears cut. The graphic annex reproduces the recto and verso of the letter and a detail of the signature, based on the copy of the image published in the brochure of an auction house in Barcelona.

The author’s Andalusian stage

The text is part of the period in which Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616) served as a supply commissioner and tax collector in the kingdom of Seville, intermittently between 1587 and 1597. The date of the document coincides with the collection of the alcabales and “tercias reales” entrusted during that third of the year, a task marked by disputes with local authorities and by the failure of the banker Simón Freire de Lima, which eventually led the author to the Royal Prison of Seville in the years 1597 and 1602.

The file recalls that the Historical Section of Notarial Protocols of the Historical Archive of Seville housed up to 20 documents with express mention of Cervantes, spanning 13 years (1585-1599). According to sources from the Real Academia Española, only twelve authentic autographs of the writer are known, and the Biblioteca Nacional d’Espanya indicates that practically no original literary manuscripts from his hand exist. The transcription of the document is supported by the Revista PH of the Instituto Andaluz del Patrimonio Histórico (no. 82, 2012, pp. 100-105).

Terms, registers and conservation

The agreement establishes that the declaration must be adopted within a maximum period of twenty months from the initiation; if the procedure expires, it cannot be initiated again within the following three years, unless requested by the owner of the asset (article 10.6). It also orders:

• Notifying the resolution to the interested parties, the Ajuntament de Palma, and the Govern de les Illes Balears.
• Publishing the agreement in the BOIB and the Butlletí Oficial de l’Estat.
• Recording it in the Registre Insular de Béns d’Interès Cultural de Mallorca and communicating it to the Comunitat Autònoma de les Illes Balears for its recording in the regional register and, subsequently, in the Registre General de Béns d’Interès Cultural de l’Estat.

Regarding the state of conservation, the documentation describes a small amount of corrosion produced by the ink, without affecting readability, and a slight irregularity on the left margin; the report warns that the description could not be completed because the asset could not be inspected. The preventive measures established are the usual ones for paper: relative humidity not exceeding 55%, temperature around 20 °C, light below 50 lux, and packaging in accordance with the ISO 16245 standard.

The initiation opens a procedure that, if completed, will incorporate into the protected heritage of Mallorca a direct testimony of the administrative life of Cervantes: one of the few preserved authentic autographs and a primary source for the study of his non-literary biography.

Fuente: Butlletí Oficial de les Illes Balears (BOIB), no. 116, September 17, 2026, Section III, p. 50284 (official reference: 1228441).