tic structure metamorphosed into playwrighting prescriptions. Castelvetro's 1570 (heavily glossed) translation of the Poetics was decisive in this regard because "it contained the first formulation of the unity of place, supposed to have been derived from Aristotle" (Clark 39). Castelvetro was not the first to translate the Poetics, but he was the first to mention unity of place as growing out of the unity of time, from a single revolution of the sun (12 hours), thus imputing to dramatic presentation a strict realism for an audience that will "refuse to be so deceived" (Castelvetro 49) as to accept shifts as necessary or probable. Clark says that Castelvetro's discussion of the unities "was the beginning of innumerable disputes throughout Europe" (48).
Cervantes and Lope each acknowledge that Spain's free-flowing approach to the unities departs from French and Italian classical praxis. Cervantes says this is why Spanish theatre and the Spanish nation are viewed as "in a state of ignorance and barbarism" (Cervantes 62). Noting that "Italy and France cal
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