PEDRO IGNACIO ALTAMIRANO. - Spanish Jesuit, born at Cártama (Malaga) on 31 July 1693, and admitted into the Society in 1708 in the province of Andalusia. About 1725 he passed to the province of Mexico, where he taught philosophy at Puebla and governed the houses of Havana and Puerto Príncipe (Cuba). Sent to Madrid before 1737 on business of his new province, he was appointed (1740) procurator-general at the Spanish court for the Jesuit missions of the “Indies”.
In various archives and libraries there are copies of the numerous memorials, manuscripts or printed, which he presented in that capacity to the colonial authorities, and which show great skill, extensive knowledge of law, and provide precise historical information. The A. also wrote an apology of the Mexican Jesuits against the accusations (then reprinted) of the bishop of Puebla, Juan de Palafox; it is found in the volume Sacra Rutium Congregatio... Oxomensis beatificationis... Ioannis de Palafox (part 1, vol. III, Rome 1788, pp. 173-347). He had returned only a few years to the province of Andalusia when the decree of expulsion of Charles III against the Jesuits overtook him at Cordova (1767). Deported to Italy, the A. died at Rimini on 7 March 1770.
His brother LOPE LUIS, born at Cártama in 1698, Jesuit in 1716, died at Algajola (Corsica) in 1767, as commissioner regulated the difficulties arising in the reductions of Paraguay, in consequence of the Spanish-Portuguese treaty of boundaries of 1750; he showed towards the Indians and even his own brethren an excessive severity.