SOLIS, Antonio de (1610—1686), Spanish dramatist and historian, was born in 1610 at Alcalá. de Henares, and studied law at Salamanca, where he is said to have produced a comedy which was acted in 1627. About 1640 he became secretary to the duke of Oropesa, whom he accompanied in various official missions; in 1654 he became one of the secretaries of Philip IV., and afterwards he was appointed chronicler. In his later years he joined one of the religious orders. He died at Madrid in 1686.

Of the nine extant plays of Solis two at least have some place in the history of the drama,— El Amor αl Uso (“Love à la Mode”) having afterwards been adapted by T. Corneille, while Ba Gitanilla de Madrid (“The Gipsy of Madrid ”), itself founded on the “novela” of Cervantes, has been made use of by Rowley and Middleton, P. A. Wolff, and, directly or indirectly, by other more recent authors. The titles of the remaining seven are Triunfos de Amor y Fortuna, Erudice y Orfeo, El A lcazar del Secreto, Las Amazonas, El Doctor Carlino, Un Bobo haze ciento, and Amparar al Enemigo. The Historia de la Conquista de Mejico, covering the three years between the appointment of Cortes to command the invading force and the fall of the city, deservedly ranks as a Spanish prose classic. It first appeared in 1684; there have been numerous reprints, the most recent being that published with notes by Revilla (Paris, 1858); an English translation by Townshend appeared in 1724. A volume of Poesias sagradas y humanas by Solis was published in 1692, and several unimportant letters of his may be read in the Epistolario Español of Rivadeneyra.