Pedro de Ribadeneira
Encyclopedia
Pedro de Ribadeneira was a Spanish
hagiologist
.
He was born at Toledo, Spain
. His father, Alvaro Ortiz de Cisneros, was the son of Pedro Gonzales Cedillo and grandson of Hernando Ortiz de Cisneros, whom Ferdinand IV
had honoured with the governorship of Toledo and important missions.
As a lad, Pedro de Ribadeneira repaired to Rome
for study, and there on 18 September 1540 was admitted by Ignatius of Loyola
, in his thirteenth year, as one of the Society of Jesus
, which had not yet received papal sanction. He pursued his studies at Universities of Paris
, Leuven
, and Padua
(1542) in philosophy and theology.
He was ordered in November, 1549, to go to Palermo
, to profess rhetoric at the new college which the Society had just opened in that city. He filled this chair for two years and a half, devoting his leisure time to visiting and consoling the sick in the hospitals. Meanwhile St. Ignatius was negotiating the creation of the German College which was to give Germany
a chosen clergy as remarkable for virtue and orthodoxy as for learning: his efforts were soon successful, and during the autumn of 1552 he called on the talent and eloquence of the young professor of rhetoric at Palermo. Ribadeneira amply fulfilled the expectations of his master and delivered the inaugural address amid the applause of an august assembly of prelates and Roman nobles. He was ordained priest 8 December 1553 (Epp. mixtæ, III, 179); during the twenty-one years which followed he constantly filled the most important posts in the government of his order.
Loyola, in 1555, sent him on a mission to Belgium
; in pursuance of it he visited England
in 1558. A later result of his visit was his Historia Ecdesiastica del scisma del Reyno de Inglaterra (1588–1594), often reprinted, and used in later editions of N. Sanders De Origine et Progressu Schismalis A ngiicani. On 25 November 1556 he left Belgium and reached Rome
on 3 February 1557, setting out again on 17 October for Flanders
. His sojourn in the Low Countries
was interrupted for five months (November 1558 to March 1559); this period he spent in London
, having been summoned there on account of the sickness of Mary Tudor, Queen of England
, which ended in her death.
In 1560 he was made Provincial of the Society of Jesus in Tuscany
, then transferred as Provincial to Sicily
in 1563, again employed in Flanders. The accession of Father Everard Mercurian
as general of the order brought a great change to Ribadeneira. His health being much impaired, he was ordered to Spain (1571) , preferably to Toledo, his native town, to recuperate. This was a dreadful blow to the poor invalid, a remedy worse than the disease. He obeyed, but had been scarcely a year in his native land when he began to importune his general by letter to permit him to return to Italy. These solicitations continued for several years. In 1574 he settled in Madrid, where he died on 10 September or 22 September 1611.
His most important work is the Life of Loyola (1572), which he was the first to write. In his first edition of the Life, as also in the second enlarged issue (1587), Ribadeneira affirmed that Loyola had wrought no miracle, except the foundation of his Society (thus making his claim parallel with that of Muhammad
, whose only miracle, originally, was the Koran). In the process for the canonization
of Loyola, a narrative published by Ribadeneira in 1609 asserted that miracles had occurred; and these are recorded in an abridgment of the Life by Ribadeneira (published posthumously in 1612) with a statement by Ribadeneira that he had known of them in 1572 but was not then satisfied of their proof. For this change of opinion he is taken to task by Pierre Bayle
. That Ribadeneira was, though an able, a very credulous writer, is shown by his lives of the successors of Loyola in the generalship of the Society, Diego Lainez and Francis Borgia
; and especially by his Flos Sanctorum (1599–1610), a collection of saints' lives, entirely superseded by the labors of the Bollandist
s. His other works are numerous but of little moment, including his Tratado de la religion (1595), intended as a refutation of Niccolò Machiavelli
's The Prince
.
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
hagiologist
Hagiography
Hagiography is the study of saints.From the Greek and , it refers literally to writings on the subject of such holy people, and specifically to the biographies of saints and ecclesiastical leaders. The term hagiology, the study of hagiography, is also current in English, though less common...
.
He was born at Toledo, Spain
Toledo, Spain
Toledo's Alcázar became renowned in the 19th and 20th centuries as a military academy. At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 its garrison was famously besieged by Republican forces.-Economy:...
. His father, Alvaro Ortiz de Cisneros, was the son of Pedro Gonzales Cedillo and grandson of Hernando Ortiz de Cisneros, whom Ferdinand IV
Ferdinand IV of Castile
Ferdinand IV, El Emplazado or "the Summoned," was a king of Castile and León and Galicia...
had honoured with the governorship of Toledo and important missions.
As a lad, Pedro de Ribadeneira repaired to Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
for study, and there on 18 September 1540 was admitted by Ignatius of Loyola
Ignatius of Loyola
Ignatius of Loyola was a Spanish knight from a Basque noble family, hermit, priest since 1537, and theologian, who founded the Society of Jesus and was its first Superior General. Ignatius emerged as a religious leader during the Counter-Reformation...
, in his thirteenth year, as one of the Society of Jesus
Society of Jesus
The Society of Jesus is a Catholic male religious order that follows the teachings of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits, and are also known colloquially as "God's Army" and as "The Company," these being references to founder Ignatius of Loyola's military background and a...
, which had not yet received papal sanction. He pursued his studies at Universities of Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, Leuven
Leuven
Leuven is the capital of the province of Flemish Brabant in the Flemish Region, Belgium...
, and Padua
Padua
Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...
(1542) in philosophy and theology.
He was ordered in November, 1549, to go to Palermo
Palermo
Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...
, to profess rhetoric at the new college which the Society had just opened in that city. He filled this chair for two years and a half, devoting his leisure time to visiting and consoling the sick in the hospitals. Meanwhile St. Ignatius was negotiating the creation of the German College which was to give Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
a chosen clergy as remarkable for virtue and orthodoxy as for learning: his efforts were soon successful, and during the autumn of 1552 he called on the talent and eloquence of the young professor of rhetoric at Palermo. Ribadeneira amply fulfilled the expectations of his master and delivered the inaugural address amid the applause of an august assembly of prelates and Roman nobles. He was ordained priest 8 December 1553 (Epp. mixtæ, III, 179); during the twenty-one years which followed he constantly filled the most important posts in the government of his order.
Loyola, in 1555, sent him on a mission to Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
; in pursuance of it he visited England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in 1558. A later result of his visit was his Historia Ecdesiastica del scisma del Reyno de Inglaterra (1588–1594), often reprinted, and used in later editions of N. Sanders De Origine et Progressu Schismalis A ngiicani. On 25 November 1556 he left Belgium and reached Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
on 3 February 1557, setting out again on 17 October for Flanders
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...
. His sojourn in the Low Countries
Low Countries
The Low Countries are the historical lands around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers, including the modern countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern France and western Germany....
was interrupted for five months (November 1558 to March 1559); this period he spent in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, having been summoned there on account of the sickness of Mary Tudor, Queen of England
Mary I of England
Mary I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death.She was the only surviving child born of the ill-fated marriage of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded Henry in 1547...
, which ended in her death.
In 1560 he was made Provincial of the Society of Jesus in Tuscany
Tuscany
Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....
, then transferred as Provincial to Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
in 1563, again employed in Flanders. The accession of Father Everard Mercurian
Everard Mercurian
Everard Mercurian was the fourth Superior General of the Society of Jesus.- Brief Biography :Born Lardinois into a humble family in Marcourt, near La Roche-en-Ardenne in what is now the province of Luxembourg in 1514, in the south-east corner of what is now Belgium. This is the origin of his...
as general of the order brought a great change to Ribadeneira. His health being much impaired, he was ordered to Spain (1571) , preferably to Toledo, his native town, to recuperate. This was a dreadful blow to the poor invalid, a remedy worse than the disease. He obeyed, but had been scarcely a year in his native land when he began to importune his general by letter to permit him to return to Italy. These solicitations continued for several years. In 1574 he settled in Madrid, where he died on 10 September or 22 September 1611.
His most important work is the Life of Loyola (1572), which he was the first to write. In his first edition of the Life, as also in the second enlarged issue (1587), Ribadeneira affirmed that Loyola had wrought no miracle, except the foundation of his Society (thus making his claim parallel with that of Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
, whose only miracle, originally, was the Koran). In the process for the canonization
Canonization
Canonization is the act by which a Christian church declares a deceased person to be a saint, upon which declaration the person is included in the canon, or list, of recognized saints. Originally, individuals were recognized as saints without any formal process...
of Loyola, a narrative published by Ribadeneira in 1609 asserted that miracles had occurred; and these are recorded in an abridgment of the Life by Ribadeneira (published posthumously in 1612) with a statement by Ribadeneira that he had known of them in 1572 but was not then satisfied of their proof. For this change of opinion he is taken to task by Pierre Bayle
Pierre Bayle
Pierre Bayle was a French philosopher and writer best known for his seminal work the Historical and Critical Dictionary, published beginning in 1695....
. That Ribadeneira was, though an able, a very credulous writer, is shown by his lives of the successors of Loyola in the generalship of the Society, Diego Lainez and Francis Borgia
Francis Borgia
Saint Francis Borgia, 4th duke of Gandía, 3rd Father General of the Jesuit Order, Grandee of Spain, was a Spanish Jesuit and third Superior General of the Society of Jesus. He was canonized on 20 June 1670.-Early life:He was born Francesco Borgia de Candia d'Aragon within the Duchy of Gandía,...
; and especially by his Flos Sanctorum (1599–1610), a collection of saints' lives, entirely superseded by the labors of the Bollandist
Bollandist
The Bollandists are an association of scholars, philologists, and historians who since the early seventeenth century have studied hagiography and the cult of the saints in Christianity. Their most important publication has been the Acta Sanctorum...
s. His other works are numerous but of little moment, including his Tratado de la religion (1595), intended as a refutation of Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was an Italian historian, philosopher, humanist, and writer based in Florence during the Renaissance. He is one of the main founders of modern political science. He was a diplomat, political philosopher, playwright, and a civil servant of the Florentine Republic...
's The Prince
The Prince
The Prince is a political treatise by the Italian diplomat, historian and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli. From correspondence a version appears to have been distributed in 1513, using a Latin title, De Principatibus . But the printed version was not published until 1532, five years after...
.