Juan Francisco Masdeu

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Juan Francisco Masdeu (born October 4, 1744 in Palermo , † April 11, 1817 in Valencia ) was a Spanish historian and Jesuit .

Life

Juan Francisco Masdeu studied in Barcelona and entered the order of the Jesuits on December 19, 1759 , in which he distinguished himself through his extensive knowledge and held various offices. After the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain (1767) he withdrew to Italy and became a teacher at the Jesuit seminars in Ferrara and Ascoli . He visited Spain in 1799 but was expelled. When Pope Pius VII restored the Jesuit order, Masdeu went to their college in Rome . In the last years of his life he became interested in Roman antiquities and got into a polemical scientific dispute with the antiquarian Carlo Fea on this subject . He returned to Spain in 1815 and died in Valencia in 1817 at the age of 72.

Masdeu devoted himself to the writing of a general history of Spain, collected numerous materials and initially had them published in Italian ( Storia critica di Spagna e della cultura spagnuola in ogni genere , 1st vol. Foligno 1781, 2nd vol., Florence 1787). Since this writing was not well received, he published an expanded version as Historia critica de España y de la cultura española (20 vols., Madrid 1783-1805) in Spanish. Despite the large size of this work, it remained unfinished and only lasted until the 11th century; If the author had continued it with the same wealth of detail into his own time, the volume of this history of Spain would have increased to a good 50 volumes. Masdeu wrote his historical work in a very critical spirit and with an accuracy that was rare for his time; however, he is more concerned with small details than with the philosophy of history. Masdeu also wrote an Arte poética fácil (1801) and Arte poética italiana (1803).

His work Historia critica de España y de la cultura española was placed on the index of forbidden books by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1826 .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jesús Martínez de Bujanda, Marcella Richter: Index des livres interdits: Index librorum prohibitorum 1600-1966 . Médiaspaul 2002, Sherbrooke University. Center d'études de la Renaissance. ISBN 2-89420-522-8 . freely accessible Google eBook , p. 596: MASDEU, Juan Francisco (1744–1817).
personal data
SURNAME Masdeu, Juan Francisco
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish historian and Jesuit
DATE OF BIRTH October 4, 1744
PLACE OF BIRTH Palermo
DATE OF DEATH April 11, 1817
Place of death Valencia