Fernando de los Ríos was a politician, diplomat, jurist and law professor who maintained a solid friendship with Federico García Lorca since they met at the “Centro Artístico” or Arts Center in Granada in 1915.
De los Ríos was born in Ronda, Malaga, in 1879, into a middle-class family with important political figures such as Antonio de los Ríos Rosas and Francisco Giner de los Ríos, a well-known professor at the Central University and founder of the Institución Libre de Enseñanza. He began his academic training in high school in Córdoba and, upon completion, his family decided that he should go to Madrid, where he studied law at university under the intellectual and personal guidance of Giner de los Ríos (Cámara Villar, 2012: 556). After finishing his law degree in 1901, he settled in Barcelona to work as an interim inspector or State Notary in Tabacalera, Madrid. Years later, in 1905, he returned to Madrid to obtain his doctorate and work as a professor at the Institución Libre de Enseñanza.
De los Ríos would be considered in the Institution a special and chosen "spiritual grandson of Giner", forming part of his most intimate circle, among whose members could be found Bernardo de Quirós, Domingo Barnés, Álvaro de Albornoz, José Castillejo, Julián Besteiro and the Machado brothers. In those times he personally met the infamous Unamuno, who also had a notable influence on him. His training and personal disposition led him at that stage to break with Catholicism, opting for a committed and very personally understanding of Christianity, which he himself would later qualify as "Erasmist" (Cámara Villar, 2012: 556-557).
In 1907, after obtaining his doctoral degree, he made a series of trips to France, Belgium, England, Germany and Switzerland. Shortly thereafter, in 1911, he obtained the position of Chair of Comparative Spanish and Foreign Political Law at the University of Granada, where he would forge a close friendship with a young Federico García Lorca, then enrolled in the Faculty of Law.