ALVA Y ASTORGA, PEDRO de. - Spanish Franciscan theologian, b. at Carbajales (Compostella), d. at Bruxelles in 1667. Of extraordinary learning and activity, jubilarian lector and procurator general of his Order, he compiled in Rome a Franciscan Bullarium (10 unpublished volumes). A most ardent defender of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, he is the author who wrote most on this subject; because of the violence of the controversies he provoked, he had to leave Spain in 1661 and take refuge in the Netherlands. His most notable work is entitled Armamentarium seraphicum pro tuendo Immaculatae Conceptionis titulo (Madrid 1648). A large part of his works, which would amount to about 40 folio volumes, has remained unpublished.
However, on the Index (decree of 6 July 1665) is a life of St. Francis of Assisi: Naturae prodigium, gratiae portentum. Hoc est seraphici P. N. Francisci vitae acta ad Christi D. N. vitam et mortem regulata et cooptata (Madrid 1651), in which he finds no fewer than 4,000 resemblances between St. Francis and
Jesus Christ (H. Reusch, Der Index der verbotenen Bücher, II, Bonn 1885, p. 263).