**LANDÍVAR, RAFAEL.** – Jesuit, humanist, born in Guatemala on 29 Oct. 1731, died in Bologna on 27 Sept. 1793. After teaching rhetoric and philosophy in the Order’s colleges at Puebla and Guatemala, he was expelled from his homeland by the decrees of Charles III of Spain and, after various wanderings, found refuge in Bologna.
The work that earned him the title of “American Virgil” is the *Rusticatio Mexicana seu rariora quaedam ex agris Mexicani decerpta* (Modena 1781; 2nd ed., enlarged, Bologna 1789), in which, in ten books of clear Virgilian verse echoing the *Georgics*, he presents the most vivid and picturesque descriptions of the customs, manners, and natural beauties of his native land.
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BIBL.:** Sommervogel, IV, col. 1457; J. Villacorta, *Estudios bibliogr. sobre R. L.*, Guatemala 1931 (with corrections by A. Pérez, *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. 327-58.