Ambrosio de Morales

Ambrosio de Morales ( Latinized Ambrosius Moralis; born 1513 in Córdoba ; died on September 21, 1591 ibid) was a Spanish humanist , historian and antiquarian .

Life

Ambrosio de Morales was the son of Antonio de Morales and the Doña Mencia de Oliva. His father was a doctor by profession, but as a versatile educated spirit he held the chair for moral philosophy and metaphysics at the University of Alcalá . His mother was the sister of the humanist Fernán Pérez de Oliva , who was rector of the University of Salamanca from 1529 after long stays in Paris and Rome .

Under his influence and direction, Ambrosio de Morales began his philological training in Salamanca , but returned to Córdoba after the untimely death of his uncle in 1531 and entered the Hieronymites Monastery of San Jerónimo de Valparaíso west of Córdoba in 1532 . The death of his father a few years later plunged him into a serious crisis. In order to free himself from the "seductions of the flesh" and to be able to devote himself entirely to God, he emasculated himself, an act whose consequences he almost died. Having already been ordained a priest, he had to leave the order and monastery. He continued his studies at the University of Alcalá , among others with Juan de Medina (1489–1545) and Melchor Cano (1509–1560). Soon afterwards he took over the chair for rhetoric there . Juan de Austria was one of his most famous students, and Alfonso Chacón was one of his most important .

In addition to his teaching activities, he devoted himself to his own research, the first result of which was his Memoria sanctorum qui orti sunt in Hispania from 1541. In 1559 he was commissioned by the Spanish royal family to write a treatise on the arrest of the Archbishop of Toledo, Bartolomé de Carranza , who was accused by the Inquisition that year . In 1563 he was appointed royal chronicler by Philip II and succeeded Florián de Ocampo , who died in 1558 , with whom Ambrosio de Morales was a deep friend. In 1565 he became the first rector of the Colegio de caballeros Manriques , a study facility reserved for the nobility at the University of Alcalá.

He chaired the canonization process of Diego de Alcalá (Didacus Complutensis) from 1567 and during this time wrote La vida, el martyrio, la inuención, las grandezas y las translaciones de los gloriosos niños Martyres San Iusto y Pastor - a treatise published in 1568 Saints Justus and Pastor , some of whose bones were transferred to Alcalá, their homeland, this year.

Title page of the first volume of the Corónica General de España by Ambrosio de Morales

From 1570 onwards, Ambrosio de Morales had the idea of continuing the Corónica General de España, begun by Florián de Ocampo and comprising five books in the second edition of 1553 . He traveled extensively across the country, examining documents and chronicles and comparing them with archaeological monuments. In 1572 Philip II commissioned him to prepare a report on Léon , Galicia and the Principality of Asturias . It was published in 1572 under the title Viage de Ambrosio de Morales por orden del Rey D. Phelippe II a los Reynos de León, y Galicia y Principado de Asturias. He transferred the books, documents, objects and relics collected in this context to the El Escorial monastery complex .

His first volume, the Corónica General de España , was published in 1574 . With books VI to X it covered the period from the Roman Republic to the Roman conquest of Spain. The second volume with books XI and XII followed in 1577 and dealt with Spain under the Visigoths and the Islamic conquest . The third volume did not follow until 1586, in books XIII – XVII the period from the revolt of Pelayo and the battle of Covadonga to the death of King Vermudos III. depicted.

In the meantime he had written one of his most important works for archeology : Las antigüedades de las ciudades de España: que van nombradas en la Corónica con las averiguaciones de sus sitios y nombres antiguos . It was written between 1565 and 1577, and in this work Morales established the principles of its approach.

In 1578 the Archbishop of Toledo , Gaspar de Quiroga y Vela , had appointed Ambrosio de Morales Vicar of Puente del Arzobispo , where he moved. Health reasons forced him to return to Córdoba in 1582, where he died in 1591. The Corónica general was continued by Prudencio de Sandoval (1552-1620). With the volume Historia de los reyes de Castilla y León published in Pamplona in 1615 , he covered the period from 1037 to 1134.

position

Ambrosio de Morales was the first Spaniard to consider extensively non-text sources , archaeological remains, inscriptions, coins, diplomas and paintings in his historical research . In particular because of his numismatic and epigraphic studies, he is considered the founder of Spanish archeology. On the basis of these factual sources, he subjected text sources such as chronicles or the works of other historians to a strict source criticism . The result was a cultural history of the respective epoch that went beyond the mere presentation of facts and data and which he enriched with information on language, art and economy or clothing. In doing so, he made an important contribution to Spanish historiography , which is particularly evident in the completely contradicting and uncritical approach of his successor in editing the Corónica general, Prudencio de Sandoval. While the young Emil Hübner still judged in 1869 that Morales was a mediocre spirit, who, however, had judged the antiquities solidly and reliably, today's research judges that there is a Spanish historiography before and after Ambrosio de Morales.

Publications (selection)

• Prisión del Arzobispo de Toledo D. Fray Bartolomé Carranza. 1559.
• La vida, el martyrio, la inuención, las grandezas y las translaciones de los gloriosos niños Martyres San Iusto y Pastor. Andrés de Angulo, Alcalá de Henares 1568 ( Google Books ).
• Viage de Ambrosio de Morales por orden del Rey D. Phelippe II a los Reynos de León, y Galicia y Principado de Asturias. 1572
• La coronica general de España. Juan Iñíguez de Lequerica, Alcalá de Henares 1574 ( Google Books ).
• Los otros dos libros undecimo y duodecimo de la coronica general de España. Juan Iñíguez de Lequerica, Alcalá de Henares, 1577 ( Google Books ).
• Los cinco libros postreros de la coronica general de España. Gabriel Ramos Bejarano, Córdoba 1586 ( Google Books ).

literature

• Enrice Redel Aguilar: Ambrosio de Morales. Estudio biográfico . Diario de Córdoba, Córdoba 1908 ( digital version ).
• Sebastián Sánchez Madrid: Arqueología y Humanismo. Ambrosio de Morales. Universidad de Córdoba, Córdoba 2002, ISBN 84-7801-640-6
• Mercedes Lillo Alemany: Visión de Al-Andalus en Ambrosio de Morales a través de sus viajes. In: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (ed.): Arte, poder y sociedad en la España de los siglos XV a XX (= Biblioteca de Historia del Arte. Volume 11). Madrid 2008, ISBN 978-84-00-08637-4 , pp. 29-40.

Web links

Commons : Ambrosio de Morales  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Wikisource: Ambrosio de Morales  - Sources and full texts (Spanish)

• Biography as part of the CIL II² project of the Universidad de Alcalá (Spanish)

Remarks

1. ↑ Juan Manuel Abascal Palazón: Ambrosio de Morales. Las antiguedades de las ciudades de España. Edición crítica del manuscrito. Volume 1: Transcripción anotada del manuscrito (= Antiquaria Hispanica. Volume 24; Catálogo de Manuscritos de la Real Academia de la Historia. Volume 6). Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid 2012.
2. ^ Emil Huebner : Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum . Volume 2: Inscriptiones Hispaniae Latinae. Berlin 1869, p. XVI: homo mediocris ingenii ... neque ultra patriam et saeculum sapiens, sed probus et sani in rebus antiquariis iudicii ...
3. ↑ Juan Manuel Abascal Palazón: Ambrosio de Morales. Las antiguedades de las ciudades de España. Edición crítica del manuscrito. Volume 1: Transcripción anotada del manuscrito (= Antiquaria Hispanica. Volume 24; Catálogo de Manuscritos de la Real Academia de la Historia. Volume 6). Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid 2012, p. 14, for the dating of the manuscript, p. 16.