Céspedes, Pablo de

Céspedes, Pablo de (pä`blō dā thās`pāthās), 1538–1608, Spanish artist, poet, and scholar. He studied for the priesthood and subsequently studied painting with Federigo Zuccaro in Rome. There he spent some 20 years and won a considerable reputation as painter, architect, and sculptor. On his return to Spain in 1577, he was appointed canon of the Córdoba Cathedral, where the best of his surviving works remain, including the well-known Last Supper. He was the author of a comparison of ancient and modern painting, of a work on the Córdoba Cathedral, and of treatises on architecture.