GRACIÁN Y MORALES, BALTASAR - Enciclopedia Cattolica, Vol. VI, p. 597

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

**GRACIÁN Y MORALES, BALTASAR.** - Jesuit and Spanish writer, born in Belmonte on 8 Jan. 1601, died in Tarazona on 6 Dec. 1658. He entered the Society of Jesus in Tarragona (1619) and, after ordination, lived alternately in Huesca, Zaragoza, Lérida, Gandia, Valencia and, at intervals, in Madrid, where he distinguished himself as a sacred orator.

In his religious conduct and literary taste, he did not always maintain serenity of judgment. Thus he resisted the censorship of his books by his Order, and in his works he associated the qualities of conciseness and acuteness with occasional defects.

His books are programs of social education for different types of worldly men: *El Héroe* (Madrid 1637), *El político Fernando* (Zaragoza 1640), *El discreto* (Huesca 1646), *El oráculo manual y arte de prudencia* (ibid. 1647), *El Criticón* (Zaragoza 1651; Huesca 1653; Madrid 1657). The latter is a philosophical novel in three parts, corresponding to the three ages of man, inspired by the *Acutezze* of Pellegrini and the *Canocchiale aristotelico* of Tesauro, in which G. displayed all his critical spirit, analyzing the types, regions, and customs of his time with sententious, profound, and at times unrelenting satire.

G. greatly contributed to the spread of culturalism and conceptism, especially with his *Agudeza y arte de ingenio* (Huesca 1648).

Immune from the usual formal defects is, instead, the *Comulgatorio* (Zaragoza and Madrid 1655), in which G. reveals his devout spirit and the sincere depth of his character.

BIBL.:** Works: *El discreto, Oráculo manual, El Héroe*, in *Bibl. de autores españoles*, LXV; *El Héroe, El discreto* (with intro. by A. Farinelli), Madrid 1900; *Cartas autógrafas* (ed. A. Bonilla), in *Rev. crit. hisp., 2* (1916), pp. 212-35; *El Criticón* (ed. M. Romera-Novarro), Philadelphia 1938-40 (II. trans. by E. Mele, Bari 1927); Sommervogel, III, cols. 1646-56. Studies:

BIBL.:** Croce, *I trattatisti italiani del concettismo e B. G.*, Naples 1899; F. Rahola, *Estudio crítico sobre B. G. y el Criticón*, Barcelona 1908; A. Morel Fatio, *Les moralistes espagnols du XVIIᵉ siècle et en particulier sur G. B.*, in *Bull. hisp., 12* (1910), p. 377 sqq.; A. Coster, *B. G.*, in *Rev. hisp., 29* (1913), p. 347 sqq.; F. Maldonado, *B. G. como pesimista y político*, Salamanca 1916; A. F. G. Bell, *B. G.*, Oxford 1921; G. Marone, *Morale e politica di B. G.*, Naples 1925; E. Sarmiento, *La estética de B. G.*, in *Bull. hisp., 37* (1935), p. 27 sqq.; A. Farinelli, *G. y la literatura diula en Alemania*, in *Divagaciones hispánicas*, II, Barcelona 1936, p. 97 sqq.

A bibliographical survey of G. by M. Romera-Novarro appears in *Hisp. rev.*, 4 (1936), p. 11 sqq. Cf. also: A. Ferrari, *Fernando el católico en B. G.*, Madrid 1945; J. M. García Lopez, *B. G.*, Barcelona 1947.