It takes about five miles along a red dirt road in the semidesert of Andalusia to reach the 18th-century ruins of the Cortijo del Fraile. Alone in the scorching sun and dry winds, the decaying Dominican farmhouse and chapel seems to stand through some sheer force of its literary fame.

It holds together with stones and mortar — a neglected national treasure that was the real-life setting for a classic tragedy of betrayal and murder in Spain’s southernmost region.

The arid lands and immense nights inspired the early 20th-century Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca to write his greatest drama, “Blood Wedding,” based on the crime story in 1928 of a runaway bride who fled her arranged marriage on horseback to be with her true love. He was killed by her relatives, and she died decades later as an elderly recluse, buried in 1987 in a secret tomb.