LANDÍVAR, RAFAEL. - Jesuit, humanist, b. in Guatemala on 29 Oct. 1731, d. in Bologna on 27 Sept. 1793. After teaching rhetoric and philosophy in the colleges of the Order in Puebla and Guatemala, he was expelled from his homeland by the decrees of Charles III of Spain, and after various wanderings he found refuge in Bologna.

The work that earned him the title of "American Virgil" is the Rusticatio Mexicana seu variora quaedam ex agris Mexicanis decerpta (Modena 1781; 2nd ed., enlarged, Bologna 1789), in which, in ten books and limpid Virgilian verses echoing the Georgics, he presents the most vivid and most picturesque descriptions of the customs and habits and of the natural beauties of his homeland.

Bibliography3 works

BIBL.: Sommervogel, IV, col. 1457; J. Villacorta, Estudios bibliogr. sobre R. L., Guatemala 1924 (with the corrections of A. Perez, La fe de erratos del libro «Estudios...», in Anales de la Soc. de geogr. e hist. de Guatemala, 14 (1937), pp. 39-46); D. Vela, L., ibid., 18 (1943), pp. 327-38.

Celestino Testore

@incollection{ec7_landivar_rafael, author = {Testore, Celestino}, title = {Landivar, rafael}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VII}, pages = {885}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1951}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/landivar-rafael} }

One of some 20,000 entries brought back from the twelve printed volumes (1948–54). Spotted something? Help us improve it.

Landívar, Rafael

About this entry