Against the backdrop of discussion on spatial experience in the early modern age the author compares the portrayal of perception and perspective in Cervantes' novellas with that evidenced in other Spanish novellas of the 16th and 17th centuries. The focus here is an innovative one, concentrating on the spatial perspectivization of perception and the act of perception itself. From this vantage the author is able to cast light on what Hatzfeld called the "mysterious perspective effect" of Cervantes' texts. In contrast to an opposition between engaño and desengaño (illusion and disillusion) the novellas are shown to operate around a contextualized, subject-related and dynamically developed epistemology and concept of truth. This places them at odds with what Maravall calls the 'guided nature' of Spanish Baroque society. The study provides numerous impulses for a new approach to Cervantes, the 'Golden Age' and novella production and narrative theory from the early modern age up to today.