POLANCO, JUAN ALONSO. - Jesuit, historian, b. at Burgos in 1516, d. at Rome on 21 Dec. 1576.
A “Magister artium” at Paris, apostolic secretary at Rome, he entered the Society of Jesus in 1541 and, after a brief period spent completing his studies at Padua and in ministries at Florence, was summoned to Rome in 1547 by St Ignazio, as his secretary. This office, which P. retained until the death of St Francesco Borgia, afforded him the opportunity to be the founder’s right-hand man in the work of drafting the Constitutions and in correspondence with the various houses of the Order; and also to make use of an extraordinary quantity of information and reports for a life of St Ignazio and a chronicle of the history of the Society: Vita Ignatii Loiolae et rerum Societatis Jesu historia (Monum. Historica S. J., 6 vols. [Madrid 1894–97], with 2 vols. of Polanci Complementa [ibid. 1916–17]); to be regarded as the greatest and most thoroughly uncorrupted and sincere work that could ever be desired (cf. Tacchi Venturi, V. BIBLICA., p. xxxvi). To this work should be added: Summarium de origine et progressu Societatis Jesu, in two versions, Spanish and Italian, first published in Fontes narrativi de s. Ignatio Loyolae, I (Rome 1943, pp. 146–298); Breve directorium ad confessarii et poenitentis munus rite obeundum (ibid.
1554); Methodus ad eos adiuvandos qui moriuntur (Macerata 1575).