Spanish poet, novelist, singer, guitarist, composer, chapel master, and priest.

He was born in Ronda (Málaga) on December 28, 1550, and died in Madrid on February 4, 1624.

He began his musical education with his first grammar teacher, Juan Cansino, in Ronda. He studied at the Faculty de Artes at the Universidad de Salamanca between 1570 and 1572. In this city, he frequented a circle of cultured nobles, poets, and musicians, including Luis de Góngora. Later, he led an adventurous life, wandering through various cities after failing to enlist in the fleet projected by Felipe II in Santander. From there, he traveled through Vizcaya, Vitoria, Zaragoza, Burgos, and Valladolid, eventually arriving in Sevilla. With the support of the duque de Medina Sidonia, Alonso Pérez de Guzmán, who was appointed governor of Milan, he traveled to Italy in 1578, and then to Flanders to serve under Alejandro Farnesio. He returned to Milan around 1581, where he received the patronage of the Gonzaga family and became associated with musicians and writers at that court. He returned to Spain and, before 1586, was ordained a priest in Málaga; he also obtained a benefice at the church of Santa María in Ronda.

In Madrid, thanks to the duque de Alba, he published his work Diversas rimas [...] con el Arte Poética y algunas Odas de Horacio, traduzidas en verso Castellano (1591), which includes love poems in Garcilaso's style, others in Castilian meters-among which is one that incorporates the variant of the décima later known as "espinela."-three Horatian epistles, and the first Spanish translation of Horacio's Arte Poética. He moved to Ronda to fulfill his duties as chaplain but left the city permanently to settle at the court in 1599. That year, he graduated as a Master in Arts from the Universidad de Alcalá de Henares (Madrid). He also obtained a chaplaincy and the position of chapel master for the Bishop of Plasencia at the church of San Andrés in Madrid, with a stipend he enjoyed until his death.

Associated with eminent figures in Spanish literature, such as Miguel de Cervantes, Mateo Alemán, Lope de Vega, Góngora, and Francisco de Quevedo, he gained prestige as both a writer and a musician. In 1618, he published in Madrid his famous picaresque novel Vida del escudero Marcos de Obregón, where, in certain passages, he demonstrates his knowledge of musical practice and the composers of his time. Lope de Vega, in some of his plays, highlights his mastery and consolidates the legend that he added the fifth string to the guitar. In La viuda valenciana (ca. 1600), Lope calls him "father of music"; in El caballero de Illescas (1602), he writes in the dedication: "Spain owes Your Grace, Mr. Maestro, two things, which, by increasing in this age, greatly illuminate it: the five strings of the instrument, which before were so barbaric with only four, the first tones of consideration with which it is now so rich, and the differences and genres of verses with new eloquences and phrases, particularly the décimas [...]" and addresses him as "My Maestro"; and in the prose narrative La Dorotea, published in 1632, a character says: "[...] these new décimas or espinelas that are used: may God forgive Vicente Espinel, who brought us this novelty and the five strings of the guitar [...]".

Unlike his literary works, which have been studied and reprinted to this day, no musical pieces by Espinel have survived. However, through various sources, it is known that he composed for the chapel of the Bishop of Plasencia. He was also highly celebrated as the author of songs he performed, accompanying himself with the guitar, at gatherings and academies attended by illustrious writers and musicians of his time.