ARÉVALO, FAUSTINO. - Spanish Jesuit and patrologist, b. at Campanario (Estremadura) in 1747; he became a Jesuit in 1761 and was one of the most distinguished among that group of learned religious who came to Italy when Carlo III expelled the Society of Jesus from Spain.
Having become known through his Hymnodia hispanica, ad cantus latinitatis metrique leges revocata (Rome, 1786), he was censor of the Academy of Catholic Religion, pontifical hymnographer (1800), and theologian of the Penitentiary (1800 and 1809-15). The favor of Cardinal Lorenzana enabled him to publish magnificent editions, based on Vatican codices, of the poems of Prudenzio (2 vols., Rome, 1788-89), Dracontio (ibid., 1791), Sedulio (ibid., 1794), and other poets of the fourth century; these editions were reproduced in Migne’s Patrologia (19 and 59-60). But the name of Arévalo remains linked with the great edition, the best complete one to this day, of St. Isidoro of Siviglia: S. Isidori Hispalensis... opera omnia (7 vols., Rome, 1797-1803, reproduced in Migne, [81-84]), followed by the Missale gallicum secundum regulam b. Isidori Hispalensis (Rome, 1804). Having re-entered the Society of Jesus, re-established in 1814, and returned to Spain (1815), Fr. Arévalo died in Madrid on 7 Jan. 1824. He left many manuscript works (listed in Uriarte-Lecina).