He is credited with the creation of the modern poetic form of the décima, composed of ten octameters, named espinela in Spanish after him.

[1] His Diversas Rimas (Assorted Rhymes), produced in 1591, showed a caustic wit.

This book, with several autobiographical details, was printed in France the same year and inspired later Lesage's Gil Blas de Santillana.

Espinel also revived the measure known as décimas or espinelas, consisting of a stanza of ten octosyllabic lines.

His bust can be found in Ronda, the city of his birth, in the small Plaza de los Gigantes.