The Celestina (used as title due to sinecdoche of one of the characters of the book actually called Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea or Libro de Calisto y Melibea y dela puta vieja Celestina) is a book published anonymously by the bachelor Fernando de Rojas (whose historicity is unreliable) in 1499. This book is considered among the greatest in the history of spanish literature, and traditionally marks the end of medieval literature and the beginning of the renacentist one in Spain. The book is written against the servants of the low nobility and procuresses to beware of their tricks and lies. The narration goes on the story of Calisto, a nobleman who falls in love with Melibea, daughter of a bourgeois; both become engaged due to the arts of Celestina, but their love has a tragic end after an accident in which Calisto fells off a ladder and, at the sight of this, the subsequent decission of Melibea to jump off a window to her death. The name Celestina has become a synonym expression of procuress — specially the old woman dedicated to promote the illegal engaging of a couple — and the literary archetype of this character (his masculine counterpart being Figaro).
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