Cervantes wrote that this novel of chivalry was “a treasury of enjoyment and a mine of recreation.” Joanot Martorell managed to combine his real-life experience as a knight with literary sources (such as Ramón Llull, Boccaccio, and Dante), enriching the whole with a fertile imagination that was nonetheless true to life. Consequently, Tirant lo Blanc is a vindication of chivalry and a literary corrective to the fiction, prone to fantasy, that glorified it. Realistic incidents of war and love predominate over shorter imaginary episodes, such as that of the maiden turned into a dragon. Tirant himself is forged from the iron of the legendary knights, but his victories are the result of his skill as a strategist, his wisdom, and his fortitude, not of superhuman qualities. So he is thrown from his horse, he becomes exhausted, and he suffers wounds. His itinerary traces the actual geography of England, France, Sicily, Rhodes, and Constantinople, and the military campaigns are historical ones, such as the blockade of the island of Rhodes in 1444 and the attempt to reconquer Constantinople. Today the novel retains its freshness due to its humor and the mischievous sensuality of many episodes: for example, a scene in which the maiden Plaerdemavida sends Tirant to the bed of his beloved Carmesina so that he can caress her as much as he likes. Plaerdemavida puts her head between the two of them so that the princess thinks that it is her servant Who is lying next to her. DRM