Science and the Clergy in the Spanish Enlightenment

For a rare example of this approach see Burke Michael E. , The Royal College of San Carlos: Surgery and Spanish medical reform in the late eighteenth century (Durham, N.C., 1977).

There are two outstanding works: Sarrailh J. , L'Espagne éclairée de la seconde moitié du XVIII^e siècle (Paris. 1954, reprinted 1964); and Ortiz A. Domínguez . Sociedad y Estado en el siglo XVIII espan̅ol (Barcelona, 1976). Herr's R. The eighteenth century revolution in Spain (Princeton, 1958) is valuable for the effects of the French Revolution. There is a new survey of the Church in this period: Historia de la Iglesia en Espan̅a, iv: La Iglesia en la Espan̅a de los Sighs XVII y XVIII, ed. by Sanchis A. Mestre (Madrid, 1979); but its slight consideration of science is evident from the chapter on “Religion y cultura en el siglo XVIII” and from the neglect of Sarmiento who is hardly mentioned.

Memorial literario, ix (1786), 460.

[ Caimo Norberto ], Voyage d'Espagne fait en l'Année 1755 , trans. by de Livoy P. (Paris, 1773), part ii, 109–10.

ibid., part ii, 65–66.

Jovellanos , Diarios, ed. by Somoza J. (3 vols, Oviedo, 1953–55), ii, 76.

ibid., ii, 174.

Anes G. , El Antiguo Régimen: Los Borbones (Madrid, 1975), 72.

“Estado Actual de las Cátedras de la Imperial Universidad de Granada”, document of November 1767 published in Montells y Nadal F. , Historia del Orígen y Fundacion de la Universidad de Granada (Granada, 1870), 294–8.

“Instrucción Reservada”, Obras originales del Conde de Floridablanca, y escritos referentes a su persona, ed. by del Rio A. Ferrer (Madrid, 1867), 217, article XXX.

The school, which had been planned by Jovellanos, opened at Gijón in 1794. For Floridablanca's praise see del Rio Ferrer , op. cit. (ref. 9), 323–4; for Jovellanos's angry remarks, Diarios, ii, 149.

Egerton B.M. MS. 442 f. 194–7; the letter is undated.

The letters of Nov.–Dec. 1799 were published in Cartas Político-económicas escritas por el Conde de Campomanes al Conde de Lerena, ed. by Villa A. Rodriguez (Madrid, 1878), pp. xxxii–xxxiv.

The best introduction to Feijóo is still Delpy G. , L'Espagne et L'Esprit Européen: L'Oeuvre de Feijóo (1725–60) (Paris, 1936).

Feijóo , “De lo que sobra y falta en la enseñanza de la medicina”, BAE , cxlii, 467. (References are to Carlo's A. Miliares edition of Feijóo's works in the series Biblioteca de Autores Espan̅oles (Madrid, 1952–61).) For Feijóo's criticism of the logic, metaphysics and ‘metaphysical physics’ of university courses in the faculties of arts see ibid., cxlii, 439–66.

Feijóo , “Causas del Atraso que se padece en España en orden a las Ciencias naturales”, BAE, Ivi, 543.

Feijóo , “Sobre el Systema Copernicano”, Cartas eruditas, iii (new edn, Madrid, 1774), 216–31. Copernicanism was rarely defended in eighteenth century Spain, a result of Galileo's condemnation. Copernicus's work was not on the Spanish Index; but the work of Tycho Brahe, a heretic, was — his work could only be read in expurgated versions even in 1790.

Feijóo , “Guerras filosóficas”, BAE, lvi, 64–65.

Feijóo , “Lo que sobra y falta en la fisica”, BAE, cxlii, 462–4.

BAE, lvi, 542.

Feijóo , “Importancia de la Ciencia fisica para la Moral”, BAE, cxliii, 135–59.

Aristotle had defined semen as “a residue of useful nourishment” and stated that men became fat by emitting less semen, De generation animalium, I, xviii, 725a–b.

Feijóo , op. cit. (ref. 20), 145 and BAE , lvi, 264. For the prevailing superstition, and the cult of statues and relics see Sarrailh , op. cit. (ref. 2), 43f and 657f.

Feijóo , “Examen de Milagros”, BAE , lvi, 524–7; “Sobre la Multitud de Milagros”, ibid., 513–15.

Feijóo , “Campana y Crucifijo de Lugo”, ibid., 520–4.

Calvo S. Mun̅oz , Inquisición y Ciencia en la España moderna (Madrid, 1977), 174.

The following were some of the many scientific works in Sarmiento's fine library: Croll's Basilica chymica; Nicolas Lémery's Cours de chimie (Castilian translation, 1703); Kepler's Harmonices mundi and Epitome astronomiae Copernicanae; the complete works of Galileo; Harvey's Exercitationes de generatione animalium; Newton's Principia (1713) and the French edition of the Opticks (1722); Rohault's Physica with Samuel Clarke's notes; Hales's Vegetable staticks; and the Newtonian physical works of s'Gravesande and P. van Musschenbroek. A conspicuously large part of his library was devoted to works on natural history (Dioscorides, Pliny, Gesner, Fuchs, Tournefort, Linnaeus, Clusius and Buffon). I have taken these titles from Sarmiento's MS. inventory, now in the Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid: “Catalogo de los Autores de quienes yo fr. Martin Sarmiento Benedictino tengo ad usum o todas sus obras, ò parte de ellas ò algun tomo suelto y separado hoy de 174[0].” His collection excluded “Voltaire and that confraternity of foreign atheists. I have nothing of that mob nor will it enter my cell”: B.M. Egerton MS. 903 f. 50; letter to José Antonio de Armona, 24 June 1761.

Egerton B.M. MS. 907 f.123; letter to P. Estebande Terreros y Pando, 17 January 1755.

Egerton B.M. MS. 906 f.2; to Aranda, 25 July 1757. Aranda thanked Sarmiento for his “erudite paper” and said it would be communicated to the Sociedad Matemática of Madrid who were considering this project: ibid., f.4.

Egerton B.M. MS. 905 f. 141–2; to the Duke of Medina Sidonia, 20 January 1757. Sarmiento was soon advising the Duke on how to revive tunny fisheries: B.M. Egerton MS.909 f.75; 18 February 1757.

Sarmiento , “Discurso sobre el método que debía guardarse en la primera educación de la juventud, para que sin tanto estudiar de memoria y á la letra tuviesen mayores adelantamientos”, Semanario erudito, xix (Madrid, 1788), 167–256 (posthumous publication; it was written in 1768).

Sarmiento , “La Educación de los Niños”, published in Carrillo M. Galino , Tres Hombres y un Problema: Feijóo, Sarmiento y Jovellanos ante la Educación Moderna (Madrid, 1953), 288.

ibid., 307.

Sarmiento “Fragmentos varios sobre educación”, in Carrillo Galino , Tres Hombres y un Problema, 370f. I have not seen the MS. of 1730, cited in Pensado L. , Fr. Martín Sarmiento, testigo de su siglo (Salamanca, 1972), 67.

Sarmiento , “Respuesta à la Carta que cscribió la Junta de Agricultura del Reyno de Galicia, al R.P. Fr. Martín Sarmiento, remitiéndole el nombramiento de Academico honorario”, Semanario erudito, xxi (1788), 276; the letter is dated 18 December 1765.

Sarmiento , “Fragmented”, in Carrillo Galino , op. cit. (ref. 30), 375. Similarly he urged the newly-founded Galician Academy of Agriculture to set up an academy of natural history; otherwise it would be “founded on air”: Egerton B.M. MS.904 f. 69; 2 April 1765.

Sarmiento , “Reflexiones Literarias para una Biblioteca Real, y para otras Bibliotecas Publicas”, written December 1743 and published posthumously in Semanario erudito, xxi (1788), 99–273.

Recent general accounts of the universities of the period include Piñal F. Aguilar , Los comienzos de la crisis universitaria en España: Antología de textos del siglo XVIII (Madrid, 1967); Peset M. and Peset J.L. , La Universidad Española (siglos XVIII y XIX), Despotismo ilustrado y Revolution Liberal (Madrid, 1974); de Morales A. Álvarez , La Ilustración y la Reforma de la Universidad en la España del Siglo XVIII , 2nd edn (Madrid, 1979). Less readable but valuable for its volumes of documents and catalogues of source material is the continuing mammoth work of C.M. Ajo y Sainz de Zúñiga, Historia de las Universidades Hispánicas (Madrid, 1957–). Kagan's R.L. Students and society in early modern Spain (Baltimore, 1974) mostly deals with an earlier period, but contains interesting statistical data on the eighteenth century universities.

de la Fuente V. , Historia de las Universidades, colegios y demos establicimientos de enseñanza en España (Madrid, 1884–89), iv, 74.

The cedula of 12 August 1768 abolishing the chairs of “the Jesuit school” and prohibiting the use of their texts is reprinted in Ajo, op. cit. (ref. 37), v, 427. For the order appointing ministerial directors to the universities, 14 March 1769, ibid., 443–9.

Published in Ferrer del Rio, op. cit. (ref. 9), 213f.

ibid., 217, articles XXVII–XXIX.

Bodleian MS.954: Obras Manuscritas de Dⁿ Pablo de Olavide, f. 120–200.

Piñal F. Aguilar , La Universidad de Sevilla en el Siglo XVIII: Estudio sobre la primera reforma universitaria moderna (Seville, 1969), 172f. Gonzalez (1711–84), a Minim, was a member of the Royal Society of Medicine in Seville where he gave advice on moral issues: On the need to baptize aborted fetuses and on the obligations of professors of medicine during epidemics; see Bejarano M. Méndez , Diccionario de Escritores, maestros y oradores naturales de Sevilla y su actuál provincia, i (Seville, 1922), 260–1.

Bodleian MS.954, f. 149.

ibid., f.152 and f.165–73. The textbooks recommended were those of Rivaud and Fortunato da Brescia.

Bodleian MS.954, f.205 and Piñal Aguilar , La Sevilla de Olavide (Seville, 1966), 188.

In 1771, when the university moved to its new site, 135 matriculated in arts; in 1776 the number had risen to 246: Piñal Aguilar , La Universidad de Sevilla, 289.

He escaped to France and returned to Spain in 1798. For the trial of Olavide and much other information see Defourneaux M. , Pablo de Olavide ou l'Afrancesado (1725–1803) (Paris, 1959).

The Faculties' replies and Campomanes's modification of them in the approved plan of studies of 1771 are reproduced in Addy G. , The Enlightenment in the University of Salamanca (Durham, N.C., 1966), appendix I.

ibid., 250–5.

ibid., 93.

ibid., 99.

Serrano y Sanz M. , “El Consejo de Gastilla y la Censura de Libros en el Siglo XVIII”, Revista de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos, xv (1906), 392–3.

Jovellanos to Charles iv, 20 May 1798, in Jovellanos, Diarios, ed. by Somoza J. , ii (Oviedo, 1954), 436–5. Angulo owned scientific books and “electric and pneumatic machines”: Sarrailh, op. cit. (ref. 2), 118.

Real Provision del Consejo que comprehende el Plan de Estudios que ha de observar la Universidad de Alcalá de Nares (Madrid, 1772).

The plan for Granada is reprinted in F. Montells y Nadal, op. cit. (ref. 8), 729f.

Blasco's career is described in Fustér Justo , Biblioteca Valenciana de los Escritores que florecieron hasta nuestros días (Valencia, 1827–30), ii, 358f.

Townsend Joseph , A journey through Spain in the years 1786 and 1787 (3 vols, London, 1791), iii, 243f. He also criticized the plan for neglecting Haller's works and for overlooking Cullen's “best performance”, the Synopsis nosologiae methodicae.

Peset J.L. , “Reforma de los Estudios Medicos en la 'Universidad de Valencia. El Plan de Estudios del Rector Blasco de 1786”, Cuadernos de Historia de la Medicina Española, xii (1973), 261.

Obras originales del Conde de Floridablanca, ed. by del Rio Ferrer (Madrid, 1867), 324.

Peset , op. cit. (ref. 59), 229–32. Laborde who travelled in Spain during the years 1797–1801 reported that there was still no laboratory or observatory, and “a shortage of machines and instruments”, because of lack of funds: de Laborde Alexandre , Itinéraire descriptif de l'Espagne (third edn, Paris, 1834), ii, 437–43.

The general plan of 1807 is reprinted in Addy, Enlightenment in the University of Salamanca, appendix II. This would have obliged theology students to attend daily lectures in experimental physics: ibid., 234.

Novísima Recopilacion de las Leyes de España (Madrid, 1805–29), lib. I, tit. xi, ley i.

Francisco and José Martin Hernandez, Los Seminarios Españoles en la Epoca de la Ilustracion (Madrid, 1973), 151.

de Dezert Desdevises , “L'Eglise Espagnole des Indes à la Fin du XVIII^e Siècle”, Revue Hispanique, xxxix (1917), 249.

“Reglamento literario é institucional extendido para llevar à effecto el plan de estudios del Colegio Imperial de Calatrava, en la Ciudad de Salamanca”, Obras de Jovellanos , ed. by Nocedal D. Candido , BAE, xlvi (Madrid, 1858), 169f. The plan was completed in December 1787.

“Discurso sobre la Necesidad de una Física provechosa con que el Clero, y particularmente los Curas Parrocos, harian un gran bien á la Nacion”, Memorial literario, xii (1787), (Sept.) 97f; (Oct.) 186f, 281f; (Nov.) 369f.

ibid. (Oct. 1787), 294.

ibid. (Nov. 1787), 385–6.

ibid. (June 1794), 321–30.

Anonymous reports by Diaz de Valdés in Memorial literario, vi (1785), 208f and viii (1786), 226f. These modernizing theses predated Villarroig's plan of reform and were not as Herr says the result of it: The eighteenth century revolution in Spain, 171.

Villarroig Juan Sidro , “Breve metodo ó plan de estudios, que para el arreglo de los de la Orden de S. Agustin, en el Principado de Cataluña, dispuso en la visita del año de 1788”, Continuación del Memorial literario, instructivo y curioso de la corte de Madrid, i (1793), 81f. The reference to Villarroig's physical cabinet, which together with his library was destroyed during the War of Independence, is taken from Sáenz P. Conrado Muiños , “La Orden Agustiniana en La Guerra de la Independencia”, La Ciudad de Dios, lxxvi (1908), 16–18.

Quoted in de Zarate A. Gil , De la instrucción publica en España (Madrid, 1855), i, 74. I have not seen the details of Trujillo's plan which was published in 1783.

PP. Fr. Rafael and Fr. Pedro Rodriguez Mohedano, Historia Literario de España desde su primera población hasta nuestros días … para desengaño e instrucción de la juventud española , i (2nd edn, Madrid, 1769), 40. Despite the intentions of the title, this work never got beyond Lucan; ten volumes were published up to 1791.

ibid., 1–43. I can find no evidence for Ferrer del Rio's assertion that the Mohedanos helped to bring modern scientific teaching to the University of Granada: Historia del Reinado de Carlos III en España (Madrid, 1856), iv, 317.

My account is based on Silverio de Teresa Santa , Historia del Carmen Descalzo en España, Portugal y America, xii (Burgos, 1944), 298f.

The various officials are now conveniently listed in de Demerson P. Demerson J. Piñal F. Aguilar , Las Sociedades Económicas de Amigos del País en el siglo XVIII: Guia del Investigador (Salamanca, 1974). For comment on the societies see Sarrailh J. Herr R. , op. cit. (ref. 2), and Shafer R.J. , The economic societies in the Spanish world (1763–1821) (Syracuse, N.Y., 1958), much of which concerns the Indies.

Casado V. Rodriguez , La Politica y Los Politicos en el Reinado de Carlos III (Madrid, 1962), 232.

Quoted in Diaz L. Rodriguez , Reforma e Illustración en la España del Siglo XVIII: Pedro Rodriguez de Campomanes (Madrid, 1975), 104.

Campomanes , Discurso sobre el Fomento de la Industria Popular (Madrid, 1774), p. xliv.

ibid., p. clii.

ibid., p, clxxii.

Discurso que Pronunció el Ill^mo Señor Don Fray Francisco Armañá, Obispo de Lugo, Director de la Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País de la Misma Ciudad y Provincia, en la Junta general celebrada en primero de Marzo del presente año 1784 (Madrid, 1784). Not to be confused with the later Bishop of Lugo who hindered Jovellanos.

Discurso que en la Apertura de la Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País del Reino de Galicia establecida en la Ciudad de Santiago, pronunció en el día 15 de Febrero de 1784 el Señor Don Antonio Paramo i Somoza (Santiago, 1784), pp. xxx–xxxi.

ibid., p. xxix.

ibid., pp. xxi–xxiii.

Rubio Francisco , Oracion Politico-moral que con motivo de la Junta General celebrada para el repartimiento de premios el 6 de Agosto de 1787 por la Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País de la Ciudad de Segovia (Segovia, 1788). For other evidence of ecclesiastical opposition see Herr , op. cit. (ref. 2), 160–1; and Sarrailh , op. cit. (ref. 2), 254–5.

Jovellanos , Informe de la Sociedad Económica de Madrid al Real y Supremo Consejo de Castilla en el Expediente de Ley Agraria (Madrid, 1795). I have used the edition of del Rio Angel , Clásicos castellanos, cx (Madrid, 1971).

Ibid ., 63–75. Perhaps it was this appeal which caused Godoy, first secretary of state, to issue an official weekly agricultural periodical for parish priests from 1797 until 1808 (described by Herr, op. cit. (ref. 2), 387).

Peset , op. cit. (ref. 59), 216.

Defourneaux M. , L'Inquisition espagnole et les Livres fran&çais au XVIII^e Siècle (Paris, 1963) is the most informative work on the Inquisition in this period.

For the system of licensing see Defourneaux , L'Inquisition espagnole, ch. 3.

Quoted by Defourneaux, ibid., 51, fn.1. Domingo García Fernández was inspector-general of assay at the mint, and later introduced technical innovations at the famous mines of Almadén.

Document printed in Calvo Muñoz , Inquisición y Ciencia, 277. It is not stated if a licence was granted.

Document in Muñoz Calvo, ibid., 278.

Whitaker A.P. , “The Elhuyar mining missions and the Enlightenment”, Hispanic American historical review, xxxi (1951), 557–85.

Lanning J.T. , “The reception of the Enlightenment in Latin America”, Latin America and the Enlightenment, ed. by Whitaker A.P. (2nd edn, Ithaca, N.Y., 1961), 78.

Suárez F. González , Historia General de la Republica del Ecuador, vii (Quito, 1903), 60–61.

Gutierrez Juan María , Noticias historicas sobre el Origen y Desarrollo de la Enseñanza Publica Superior en Buenos Aires desde la Epoca de la Estincion de la Compaña de Jesus en el Año 1767 hasta poco despues de fundada la universidad en 1821 (Buenos Aires, 1868), 350f.

Lanning J.T. , The eighteenth-century Enlightenment in the University of San Carlos de Guatemala (Ithaca, N.Y., 1956).

My account is based on Laos F. Barreda , Vida Intelectual del Virreinato del Peru (3rd edn, Lima, 1964).

Philip II's ambivalent relations with science are considered in my article “Philip II's patronage of science and engineering”, The British journal for the history of science (to appear in 1983).