RAFAEL LANDÍVAR: BIOGRAPHY, WORKS - ARTE - 2025

Rafael Landívar (1731-1793) was a Guatemalan priest who belonged to the Order of the Society of Jesus, and who also stood out as a writer and poet. He was endowed with great intelligence, showed capacity for letters and knew how to be at the service of others.

Landívar's work was not abundant. However, it was recognized for its depth. His most important writing was Rusticatio mexicana, a poem based on the nature of the Mexican territory during the Spanish conquest. He also wrote several verses in Spanish and Latin, in addition to a considerable number of sermons.

Portrait of Rafael Landivar. Source: University of San Carlos de Guatemala, USAC, via Wikimedia Commons

The priestly life of the Jesuit was marked by his expulsion from New Spain after the order of the monarch Carlos III, who did not sympathize with the Society of Jesus. So Rafael Landívar spent the last years of his life in Italy, specifically in the city of Bologna.

Biography

Birth and family

Rafael Landívar was born on October 27, 1731 in Guatemala at the time of the rule of the Spanish empire in America. The poet came from a well-off family. It is known that his father was Pedro Landívar, a businessman in the gunpowder business, and that he was also a relative of the conqueror Bernal Díaz.

Landívar Formation

Landívar's years of academic training began in 1742. When he was eleven years old, he entered the Colegio Mayor Universitario de San Borja de Guatemala. Two years later he began studying philosophy at the Royal and Pontifical University of San Carlos Borromeo.

Later, in 1746 he obtained a bachelor's degree in philosophy. The following year, and only sixteen years old, he obtained a doctorate. He then made the decision to be part of the Order of the Society of Jesus, so in 1749 he went to Mexico to enter the seminary. He became a priest in 1755.

Performance in Guatemala

The Jesuit priest returned to Guatemala shortly after being ordained. There he served as director of the San Borja School, where he also taught philosophy and carried out his work with care and dedication. At that time he had already begun to write some of his poems.

Expulsion of the Society of Jesus from New Spain

In 1759 Carlos III came to the Spanish throne with the determination to remove the Jesuits from all the territory of New Spain. He made that decision influenced by his mother Isabel de Farnesio, who did not sympathize with them and distrusted the religious organization.

Emblem of the Society of Jesus. Source: Moranski, via Wikimedia Commons

The expulsion order was carried out on April 2, 1767, so a total of five thousand two hundred and seventy-one Jesuits had to leave both Spain and the Indies. Those who occupied Guatemala lost their belongings and properties; They went first to Mexico, and then to Italy.

Detachment

Both Landívar and his companions of the Company who lived in Guatemala had to part with their families and friends, whom many could never see again. In the case of his monastery, it was ceded to the friars of the Dominican Order.

For his part, the poet had to abandon the theology and philosophy classes that he taught at the San Borja institute, which was under the administration of the parish priest of the city's main church. Their lands were sold. Ultimately, they only took sadness and the pain of leaving their homeland.

The masterpiece of Rafael Landívar

Landívar's arrival in Italy was never to return to his native land, as happened with most of his companions. Although he was well received by the noble Albergati, for whom he worked as a teacher, he never ceased to miss and feel nostalgic for Guatemala and America in general.

At that time, melancholy led him to develop his best-known work: Rusticatio mexicana. The poet and priest had the opportunity to see it published. The first edition was made in 1781, while the second came to light in 1782 with some corrections and more extensive.

Last years and death

Landívar spent the last years of his life dedicated to writing, prayer and contemplation. Although the cause of his death is unknown, it is known that it occurred on September 27, 1793 when he was sixty-two years old, in the city that welcomed him for more than two decades: Bologna.

At first the remains of the priest Landívar were buried in the crypt of the Santa María delle Muratelle church. Then, more than half a century later, in 1950, his grave was found, and the Guatemalan authorities managed to repatriate his body. Currently his remains rest in Antigua Guatemala.

Rescue and conservation of his work

In the nineteenth century, Rafael Landívar's work had lost renown in Guatemala. That was because the number of editions that were had were few and difficult to understand. So the historian Ramón Salazar asked the Guatemalan diplomat in Venice to go to Bologna for an investigation.

Portrait of Carlos III of Spain. Source: Anton Raphael Mengs, via Wikimedia Commons

After the negotiations, two texts of his work Rusticatio were sent to the native city of the Jesuit, which were translated from Latin into Spanish on different dates. A century later, in 1961, the Rafael Landívar University was created in honor of the poet and Jesuit priest.

Work

The scarce literary work of Rafael Landívar included several poems in Spanish, Latin and some sermons. It was characterized by being expressive and by having a high lyrical charge. The following were the best known writings of the author:

- Funebri declamato pro iustis (1766). It was a funeral prayer on the occasion of the death of the priest Francisco Figueredo y Victoria.

- Rusticatio mexicana or Rusticatio mexicana, seu rariora quaedam ex agris mexicanis decerpta (1781).

-Short description of his work

Rusticatio mexicana (1781)

It was Landívar's most important and well-known work, which he wrote motivated by melancholy during his years in exile. The poetic text referred to the peasant way of life and the nature of the territory of New Spain. The author was compared to the poet Virgilio for the way he structured the verses.

The two editions published by the Jesuit, in 1781 and 1782, were written in Latin and formed in hexameters. He joined them in a greeting to Guatemala, fifteen songs and a kind of sermon. The second edition was corrected in terms of form, and the author also made some extensions to it.

Content

Mainly, Landívar's work was an act of affection for his homeland, a recognition of its natural riches, the beauty of the fauna and flora, as well as the tenacity of the country man. The exposition of American geography transports the reader on a journey of natural beauty.

Some scholars have considered that the content of the writing was a totally realistic historical documentation of the situation of the peasant population in colonial times. The positives and negatives broadened the Old World view of America.

Comparisons

The work of the Guatemalan priest has been the cause of positive comparisons with texts by more contemporary authors. Such was the case of Silva to the agriculture of the torrid zone of Andrés Bello, or Mexican Grandeur of Bernardo de Balbuena.

The comparisons were perhaps given because the description of the natural environments was a reflection of the American settings. Sensitivity, humanization and creativity managed to create a bridge of respect, autonomy and freedom for the riches of the New World with the reader.

Fragments

The following fragment, although it was annexed to the work already described, was developed by the author in 1765, inspired by the earthquake that struck his land fourteen years earlier:

"Cheers, cheers or sweet

Guatemala, origin and delight of my life!

Let me bring you beautiful

the memory

the gifts, the offerings that you invite:

your sources, pleasant, your markets, your temples, your homes and your climate.

What would it be, if I remembered luxury

of golden damasks and curtains, already of showy silks, already of wool

with the scarlet tyria well dyed?

… Recover the city quickly

of its own destruction

our life, perhaps happier, heaven love him!

What other phoenix

of immortal ash.

Enjoy yourself, risen mother!

Capital of that kingdom the richest!

Free lives from now on forever

of tremors and ruins;

and I will make the stars resound, the tender echo of live songs… ”.

Mexican rustic

"Oh hail, country, for me dear, my sweet home, oh hail Guatemala!

You the charm and the origin of my life.

How much, blessed land, is given

the mood evoking your ground

the garments all, from natura gala!

I remember your climate and your sky, I look at your sources, and he walks

through your bloated streets, oh! my longing…

Often the pleasant image

arises in my mind, from your many rivers

that fleeing they are in a fast race

around the shadowy margins;

or the inside of your homes

see me full of ornaments…

… Oh! the city that yesterday was splendid

alcazar and queen the lady, admiration and amazement of the people;

A collection of stones is only now…!

house, temples and streets… they don't fit;

and still from the mountain to the protective summit

there is no way to go, let them be forbidden

the buildings that in such fatal ruin

from their heights they roll to dust.

References

1. Mexican rustic. (2008). Guatemala: The Hour. Recovered from: lahora.gt.
2. Rafael Landívar. (2019). Spain: Wikipedia. Recovered from: es.wikipedia.org.
3. Tamaro, E. (2019). Rafael Landívar. (N / a): Biographies and Lives. Recovered from: biografiasyvidas.com.
4. Rafael Landívar. (2019). Spain: Cervantes Virtual Center. Recovered from: cvc.cervantes.es.
5. Biography of Rafael Landívar. (2017). Guatemala: Learn Guatemala. Recovered from: aprende.guatemala.com.