Polanco, Juan Alonso

POLANCO, JUAN ALONSO. - Jesuit, historian, b. at Burgos in 1516, d. at Rome on 21 Dec. 1576.

"Magister artium" in Paris, apostolic secretary in Rome, he entered the Society of Jesus in 1541 and, after a brief period of completing his studies at Padua and of ministries at Florence, was called in 1547 by St. Ignatius to Rome as his secretary. The office, which Father Polanco held until the death of St. Francis Borgia, gave him the opportunity to be the founder's right-hand man in the work of drafting the Constitutions and in the correspondence with the various houses of the Order; and also to make use of an extraordinary quantity of notices and reports for a life of St. Ignatius 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 most and the best of uncorrupted and sincere that could ever be desired (cf. Tacchi Venturi, v. bibl., p. xxxvi). To this work are to be added: Summarium de origine et progressu Societatis Jesu, in two redactions: Spanish and Italian, published for the first time 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).

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