PEDRO DE RIVADENEIRA (Ribadeneira), Pedro de. - Jesuit, writer, b. at Toledo on 1 Nov. 1526, d. at Madrid on 22 Sept. 1611.
At the age of 13 he followed Cardinal Alessandro Farnese to Rome as a page and there met St Ignatius of Loyola, who protected him and later received him into the Society on 18 Sept. 1540. He studied at the universities of Paris, Louvain and Padua; ordained priest in 1553, he spent the years 1555-60 in the Netherlands to secure official recognition of the Society of Jesus; from 1560 to 1572 he was in Italy, where he held various offices: provincial, commissary, visitor, assistant. After the death of St Francis Borgia he was sent away from Rome as a Spaniard and went to Toledo, where he devoted himself to writing his works, most of them in classical Castilian.
R. is the first biographer of St Ignatius. He began with *Vita Ignatii Loiolae* (Naples 1572), on whose circumstances cf. P. Tacchi Venturi, *Della prima edizione della vita di s. Ignazio* (Naples 1901), which, enlarged and corrected, he himself translated into Castilian (Madrid 1583) and was later reproduced and translated into various languages down to our own day. R. is also the first biographer of the Society with *Illustrium scriptorum religionis S. I.* (Madrid 1602; 3rd posthumous ed., ibid. 1613). Other principal historical works: *Vida del p. Diego Lainez* (ibid. 1594) and of Fr Francisco de Borja, added to the Ignatian life in the 1594 edition; he completed these writings on the Society with the *Trattato con lo qual se da razón del instituto de la Compagnia de Jesús* (ibid. 1605); *Trattato del modo de gobierno que nuestro p. Ignazio ha tenido* (ibid. 1878). *Historia ecclesiastica del Seisma del Reyno de Inglaterra* (ibid. 1588); new ed. ed. by E. Rey, *Historias de la Controriforma por el p. R.* (ibid. 1945). Among his ascetical and moral works worthy of mention are: *Trattato de la tribulación* (ibid. 1589); *Trattato de
PEDRO RIVADENEIRA - REVELATION
when similar trials were being held in Lombardy-Venetia against Federico Confalonieri and the Milanese and Brescian Federati. The total number of those condemned was 513, of whom seven to the death penalty; but an immediate act of clemency followed, by which all sentences imposed by the special tribunal were commuted and reduced.
Nevertheless, R. was struck by sectarian vengeance: on 23 July 1826, in Ravenna, he was the target of an attack from which he emerged unharmed, while Canon Muti fell dead at his side. These and other bloody events gave rise to the so-called Invernizzi trial, conducted by the prelate of that name, and concluded on 26 Apr. 1828 with five executions. After a brief stay in Genoa, R. returned to Rome, where he was appointed Prefect of the Congregation of Waters and Roads. Michele Rosi passed the following judgment on him: “A convinced conservative, a pious priest, he gave proof of courage not always united with prudence; he was severe in exacting respect for laws and superior orders, but inclined to clemency.”