VILLADA GARCÍA, ZACARÍAS. - Jesuit, historian, b. at Gatón de Campos (diocese of Palencia) on 16 March 1879, killed by the Reds of Spain near Vicálvaro (Madrid) on 1 October 1936.
Having entered the Order in 1894 and completed his religious and literary formation, he was assigned to the editorial staff of Razón y Fe (1914-25), at the same time teaching at the Accademia Centro de Estudios históricos and publishing, besides several articles in the journal, some works to aid and guide students: Metodología y crítica histórica (Barcelona 1912); Come se aprende a trabajar científicamente. Leciones de la Crónica de Alfonso III (Madrid 1918); Catálogo de los codices y documentos de la catedral de León (ibid. 1919); Cisneros según sus íntimos (ibid. 1921); Paleografía española precedida de una introducción sobre la paleografía latina (ibid. 1923) etc. But his principal work is the Historia eclesiástica de España, carried down to 1085: I, I and II (ibid. 1929); II, I and II (ibid. 1932); III, I (ibid. 1936). The social-communist Revolution of 1931 destroyed, along with his Madrid residence, all his manuscripts, notes and card indexes for the continuation of the work, the fruit of a whole lifetime of labor. V. began his labor anew and succeeded in publishing the II and III volumes; but having been discovered, in the Revolution of 1936, in mid-September, by the police of the Reds, he was at first left free, as an academician of the Centro histórico, but was soon condemned and killed for counter-revolutionary activity, under the charge of having attempted to cross over to Toledo, then liberated by the national army. To V. is also due the discovery of the celebrated Codex of Roda, which had disappeared in the middle of the 18th century, written on parchment, belonging to the third period of Visigothic script, important for knowledge of the origins of the Kingdom of Navarre.