This article focuses on La inocente Laura, a play written by Lope de Vega in the first decade of the 1600s that has received little critical attention in spite of its role in a transnational network of textual relations that connects Italy, England, Spain, and France.

 I will examine La inocente Laura's transformative relationship to its main source, a novella written by Italian author Giambattista Giraldi Cinzio, by analyzing how Lope included in his play a negative image of court life and evil courtiers not present in Cinzio's tale. I will do so with a comparative and contrastive perspective, as the same novella that inspired Lope's La inocente Laura was also used in England by Robert Greene for his play The Scottish History of James the Fourth and Lope's text was adapted for the French and Italian stages by Antoine Le Métel d'Ouville and Gianbattista Pasca.