Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro

Who was Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro?

Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro was a Spanish Jesuit and famous philologist; born at Horcajo, 1 May 1735; died at Rome, 24 August 1809.

Having entered the Jesuit order at Madrid, he studied at Alcalá de Henares, devoting himself with special zeal to architecture and linguistics. For a time he taught at the royal seminary in Madrid and at the Jesuit college of Murcia; then he went to the Americas as a missionary and remained there until 1767, when in connection with the abolition of the Jesuits the establishments of the Society were taken away from the order. Hervás now returned to Europe, taking up residence first at Cesena, Italy, then in 1784 at Rome. In 1799 he went back to his native land, but four years later left Spain and lived in Rome for the remainder of his life. He was held in high honour; Pope Pius VII made him prefect of the Quirinal library, and he was a member of several learned academies. In Italy he had a chance to meet many Jesuits who had flocked thither from all parts of the world after the suppression of the order. He availed himself diligently of the exceptional opportunity thus afforded him of gaining information about remote and unknown idioms that could not be studied from literary remains. The results of his studies he laid down in a number of works, first in Italian, and subsequently translated into Spanish.