This article analyses cultural exchange processes in early modern Europe using the example of the circulation of the Cardenio and Celinde material, the original text of which can be found in Cervantes’ Don Quixote. However, comparative research often reaches its limits because the history of reception is difficult to reconstruct due to the lack of sources: What, for example, connects Gryphius’ tragedy with Shakespeare’s lost drama The History of Cardenio? What did both playwrights know about the literature of the Siglo de Oro? An answer to these questions is provided by a consideration of the author as a cultural mediator in the sense of Roger Chartier. In case of the Silesian poet, it also makes it possible to draw conclusions about his knowledge of foreign-language literatures that go far beyond his actual translation work.