Juan José Eguiara y Eguren (2 February 1696, Mexico City – 29 January 1763 Mexico City) was a Mexican Catholic scholar and bishop. He is the author of Bibliotheca mexicana, "a pioneering bibliographical work for Mexico." [1]
Juan José Eguiara y Eguren (2 February 1696, Mexico City – 29 January 1763 Mexico City) was a Mexican Catholic scholar and bishop. He is the author of Bibliotheca mexicana, "a pioneering bibliographical work for Mexico." [1]
Eguiara y Eguren was of Basque heritage, with his father an immigrant merchant and his mother a first-generation American-born Basque. He was a brilliant student, ultimately earning a doctorate in theology, and he became a faculty member at the University of Mexico. He was elected rector in 1749. [2] His learning was extensive, covering theology, canon law, philosophy, mathematics, and letters; and he was a gifted orator. Eguiara was elected Bishop of Yucatán, but did not take the post claiming ill health. He continued his literary work in Mexico City. He has been called "the initiator of the history of ideas in Mexico." [3]
Eguiara y Eguren published his Biblioteca Mexicana in response to the text of the Dean of Alicante, Manuel Martí, which denigrated the attainments of the men of letters of the New World in his "epistolas latinas" printed in Madrid in 1735.
He published the first volume, which comprised the letters A, B, and C, and left in manuscript many biographies down to J. In the preface he refutes the charges of Dean Martí with much spirit and patriotism. The Biblioteca Mexicana is written in Latin and, besides the fact that it is incomplete, a pompous style detracts from it. It was, though, the first work of its kind published in Mexico and perhaps in the whole of Spanish-America. The complete title is Biblioteca Mexicana sive eruditorum historia virorum qui in America Boreali nati, vel alibi geniti, in ipsam domicilio aut studiis asciti, quavis lingua scripto aliquid tradiderunt. Ferdinando VI Hispaniarum Regi Catholico, Nuncupata Mexici 1755.
He also published "Panegiricos", printed separately in Mexico (1727–57); "Elogios fúnebres" (1755–66); "Praelectiones" (Mexico, 1746); fourteen volumes in theological and juridical questions; twenty volumes of sermons and instructions; and several other treatises.
Fausto de Elhuyar was a Spanish chemist, and the first to isolate tungsten with his brother Juan José Elhuyar in 1783. He was in charge, under a King of Spain commission, of organizing the School of Mines in México City and so was responsible for building the Palacio de Minería, a structure that would house the school. Elhuyar left Mexico after the Mexican War of Independence, when most of the Spanish residents in Mexico were expelled.
José María de Tornel y Mendívil (1795–1853) was a 19th-century creole Mexican army general, attorney and politician who greatly influenced Mexico’s political stage and the career of President Antonio López de Santa Anna.
Dr. Pablo de la Llave (1773–1833) was a Mexican Catholic priest, politician, and naturalist.
Andrés Cavo, SJ was a Jesuit and historian of New Spain. His Historia de México, completed in exile in Rome, was "the first attempt of a general history of the period of Spanish domination in Mexico" and provided information for future historians of Mexico.
Luis Abadiano y Valdés was a Mexican printer and publisher in Mexico City, one in a long line of printers, publishers, booksellers and book collectors traceable back to the famous Humanist and bibliographer Juan José de Eguiara y Eguren, founder of the printing house Biblioteca Mexicana in 1753.
José Mariano Beristáin y Martín de Souza was a Mexican bibliographer and author of one of the principal sources of knowledge of the bibliography of Mexico and Central America.
José Antonio de Alzate y Ramírez was a priest in New Spain, scientist, historian, and cartographer.
The Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico was a university founded on 21 September 1551 by Royal Decree signed by Charles I of Spain, in Valladolid, Spain. It is generally considered the first university founded in North America and second in the Americas.
Carlos María de Bustamante Merecilla was a Mexican statesman, historian, journalist who played a political and intellectual role in support of Mexican independence, both before and during the Mexican War of Independence.
Andrés Iduarte Foucher was a distinguished Mexican essayist and member of the Mexican Academy of Language.
Francisco Burgoa was a historian of the Dominican Order in Mexico. He entered the Dominican Order on 2 August 1629, and soon became a master in theology. The voluminous books written by him on the past of his native Mexican province of Antequera,, are very rare and valuable, though not absolutely reliable on several topics. Burgoa utilizes material on particular Dominicans from Agustín Dávila Padilla, but emphasizes their work in Oaxaca. Burgoa was curate of several Indian parishes and his knowledge of the native languages, the Zapotec and Mixtec, is stated to have been very thorough. In 1649 he became Provincial of the province of San Hipólito and took part in the chapter general of his order in Rome in 1656. Returning to Mexico with the title of vicar-general, a member of the Spanish Inquisition, and Commissary and Inspector of Libraries of New Spain (Mexico), he again became Provincial of Oaxaca in 1662. He was interested in several ecclesiastical foundations and improvements, and was highly respected at the time of his death. The two historical and geographical works through which he is best known are the Palestra histórica, ó Historia de la Provincia de San Hipólito de Oaxaca, de la Orden de Predicadores, and the Descripción geográfica de la América setentrional etc.. He published a number of sermons and also wrote Itinerario de Oaxaca á Roma y de Roma a Oaxaca.
Agustín Dávila Padilla was a Mexican Dominican, a writer and Archbishop of Santo Domingo.
Juan Bautista was a Mexican Franciscan theologian and writer.
Francisco de Asís Monterde García Icazbalceta was a prolific and multifaceted Mexican writer whose career spanned over fifty years. He was an important promoter of the arts and culture in Mexico in the years following the Revolution.
Juan de Córdova was a Spanish Dominican friar, known for his studies of the Zapotec languages. It is not certain whether Córdova was his family name, or whether he assumed it from his native city after he became a Dominican.
Antonio de León y Gama (1735–1802) was a Mexican astronomer, anthropologist and writer. When in 1790 the Aztec calendar stone was discovered buried under the main square of Mexico City, he published an essay about it, Descripción histórica y cronológica de las dos piedras que con ocasión del nuevo empedrado que se está formando en la plaza principal de México, se hallaron en ella el año de 1790 explaining the functioning of Aztec calendars.
The Royal Basque Society of Friends of the Country, also known as La Bascongada or Bascongada Society, was founded in the mid-18th century to encourage the scientific, cultural and economic development of the Basque Country.
Manuel Martí was a Spanish humanist scholar. Born near Valencia in 1663, he published a collection of poems, entitled Amalthea Geographica, and made several translations from the Latin. He died in Alicante in 1737.
Josefina Muriel de la Torre was a Mexican writer, historian, researcher, bibliophile, and academic. She specialized in the history of the feminine and religious world of the time of New Spain. She was awarded the Order of Isabella the Catholic by the government of Spain in 1966.
Juan Marinello Vidaurreta was a Cuban Communist intellectual, writer, poet essayist, lawyer and politician. He was one of the most prominent Cuban intellectual figures of the interwar period and post revolutionary Cuba.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Juan José Eguiara y Eguren". Catholic Encyclopedia . New York: Robert Appleton Company. The entry cites:
