VERDAGUER I SANTALÓ, JACINT. - Catalan priest and poet, b. at Folgaroles on 17 May 1845, d. at Vallvidriera on 10 June 1902.
Of his many journeys in Europe and Africa as chaplain to the Barcelona transatlantic company he left the impressions of an attentive observer in the volume *Excursiones i viages* (1884); but already in 1877 the publication of the poem *L'Atlàntida* had revealed him as an exceptional poet. Another poem, *Canigó*, a Pyrenean legend of the period of the Reconquest (1886), earned him the crown of poet of Catalonia.
A pious and zealous priest and a lyric poet by instinct, he entrusted to verse his mystical ardour and his patriotic feeling: *Idilis cantus misticus*, *Cántics*, *Cansons de Montserrat*, *Caritat*, *E somni de san Joan*, *Jesús Infant*, *Nazaret*, *S. Franco*, *Flors de Maria*, *Patria*, the famous *Oda a Barcellona*, etc. More than 1,200 lyrics by V. were set to music and sung by the people. Suspended *a divinis* in 1893 on account of calumnious reports, he poured his inner sorrow into the poetic collections *Roser de tot l'any* and *Flors del Calvari*; but reinstated to celebrate in 1898, he was entrusted with a benefice in the church of Betlem in Barcelona. He possessed vigour and sincerity of inspiration, lively imagination, and nobility of form not averse to popular modulations. V. is one of the leading representatives of the Catalan Renaissance.