ANDRÈS, JUAN. – Spanish man of letters and philosopher, b. at Planes (Valencia) in 1740, d. in Rome on 12 January 1817. Having entered the Society of Jesus at Tarragona at the age of fifteen, he was a professor at the college of Gandia when, by order of Carlo III, the Spanish Jesuits were arrested (1767) and deported to Corsica and thence to Italy. A. taught philosophy at Ferrara, where he was an active member of the local Academy; he later became tutor at Mantua and librarian at Parma. Having again affiliated himself with the Society of Jesus, restored in the Neapolitan territories, and having moved to Naples, under the French regime he became prefect of the Royal Library (1806) and perpetual secretary of the Academy of Antiquities, positions that were confirmed for him by the Bourbons.
Through methodical study and personal research in archives and libraries, A. acquired a profound knowledge of Italian literature and philosophy. One of his earliest writings, Saggio sulla filosofia del Galileo, Mantua 1775, claimed for the great Pisan the primacy in the reform of the experimental method. A. engaged in a courteous polemic with Tiraboschi, which arose from the latter’s deriving the origin of Seicentismo from Spanish domination in Italy: Lettere dell'abate D. G. A. al Sig... fra Gaetano Paleuti Gonzaga... sopra una pretesa cagione del corrompimento del gusto italiano nel secolo XVII, Cremona 1776. Of lasting merit for Italian erudition are, among others, the Catalogo dei codici MSS. della famiglia Capitoli di Mantova, Mantua 1797, and the Anecdota graeca et latina ex MSS. codicibus Bibl. Regiae Neapolitanae, vol. I: Prodromae, Naples 1816 (which contains the histories of the library). Another brief but erudite work, Dell'origine e delle vicende dell'arte d'insegnare a parlare ai sordomuti, Venice 1793 (repr. Naples 1796), was published with the addition of the sources by G. Ferreri, Dorumenti per la storia dell'educazione dei sordomuti, Milan 1909.
But A.’s principal work, which earned him the favor of the contemporary sovereigns, is the one first published by Bodoni’s presses: Dell'origine, progressi e stato attuale d'ogni letteratura, 7 vols., Parma 1782–89 (several reprintings with corrections and additions, which were brought together in 1822 in a supplementary volume to the Parma edition; the work was translated into Spanish, as were other writings by A., by his brother Carlo). This true literary encyclopedia, although notable for its breadth of information, could not, precisely because of its scope, escape the danger of erudition often derived at second hand and of superficial treatment of fundamental subjects; nevertheless, Carducci’s contemptuous judgment of it seems greatly exaggerated. A. was paying his tribute to the encyclopedism that he himself deplored in other writings.
Special mention must finally be made of the Cartas familiares sent by A. to his brother Carlo and published by him in 5 small volumes, Madrid 1786–95 (with another analogous volume, Valencia 1800); they belong to the genre of literary journeys through the peninsula and faithfully and vividly reflect the Italian literary milieu at the end of the eighteenth century. It may be said that, among the Spanish Jesuits exiled to Italy by Carlo III, A. was the one who most fully assimilated Italian culture.
and Spagna. Saggi su i rapporti storici, filosofici ed artistici, Florence 1941, pp. 321–35; M. Batllori, Juan A. y el humanismo, in Revista de filología española, 29 (Madrid 1945), pp. 121–128.