A look into the community of Jesuits expelled from America through the works of Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro S.J. (1735-1809)

Abstract

In this paper we are going to study the network established by Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro S.J. (1735-1809) among the community of expelled Jesuits in Italy using two of his works: Catálogo de las lenguas de las naciones conocidas and Biblioteca Jesuítico-española. We will focus on the Jesuits who came from the American colonies of the Spanish and Portuguese crowns, both the creoles and those from Spain, Portugal and other European countries who were in America at the time of the expulsions. Not only we will analyze the network of American informants of the Society of Jesus formed by Hervás y Panduro, but we will present his works as a fundamental source for the study of the community of expelled American Jesuits in Italy. We will try to show that Hervás y Panduro had a special role of “leadership” inside this community and how he used it for his own personal benefit and to help his fellow colleagues of the defunct Society of Jesus. This position allowed him to have a privileged access to many Jesuit missionaries and scholars and to the information they provided, which helped Hervás y Panduro to write many of his works. In his works we can find a deep knowledge of the life and work of numerous Jesuits, many of whom are almost totally unknown to the specialized historiography. Catálogo de las lenguas, one of Hervás’s most studied and notorious works, shows us not only his knowledge of the American languages, but also provides a great deal of information about the Jesuit missionaries in America. Biblioteca Jesuítico-española, an apologetic inventory of the life and work of almost five hundred Jesuits, offers us almost two hundred biographies of American Jesuits, thirty of whom do not appear in other similar inventories or studies of this subject. Through the study of these two books we will try to illustrate how historians can take advantage of the works of Hervás y Panduro to study the complex community of expelled American Jesuits in Italy. 

Key words: Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro, expulsion of the Society of Jesus, American Jesuits.