Fidel Fita Colomé or, in Catalan, Fidel Fita i Colomer (31 December 1835,

Arenys de Mar Arenys de Mar (, , ''arenys'' being Catalan for "sands (of a seasonal creek)", and ''de mar'' for "by the sea" as opposed to Arenys de Munt, "sands up hill") is one of the main municipalities of the comarca of Maresme, Barcelona Province, Cata ...

- 13 January 1918,

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

) was a Spanish- Catalonian archaeologist, philologist, and historian.

Biography

Born to a newly

bourgeois The bourgeoisie ( , ) are a class of business owners, merchants and wealthy people, in general, which emerged in the Late Middle Ages, originally as a "middle class" between the peasantry and Aristocracy (class), aristocracy. They are tradition ...

family, at the age of ten he was sent to study grammar in

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

. In 1850, at the age of fifteen, he became a

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

. After studying at several of the order's other institutions, including one in Nivelles, Belgium, where he studied

rhetoric Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. It is one of the three ancient arts of discourse ( trivium) along with grammar and logic/ dialectic. As an academic discipline within the humanities, rhetoric aims to study the techniques that speakers or w ...

, he went to Loyola in 1853, to become a Professor of the

humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture, including Philosophy, certain fundamental questions asked by humans. During the Renaissance, the term "humanities" referred to the study of classical literature a ...

and

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

. During the Revolution of 1854, he went into exile in France, returning in 1857 to take up a post as Professor of Latin and French at the Colegio de Carrión de los Condes in

Palencia Palencia () is a city of Spain located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is the capital and most populated municipality of the province of Palencia. Located in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, in the northern half of ...

. From 1860 to 1866, he lived in León, where he taught

theology Theology is the study of religious belief from a Religion, religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an Discipline (academia), academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itse ...

and began his investigations into archaeology, history, and

epigraphy Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the wr ...

. This led to his being named Vice-President of the "Comisión de Monumentos de León", in which position he met the architect,

Eduardo Saavedra Eduardo Saavedra y Moragas (27 February 1829 in Tarragona – 12 March 1912 in Madrid), Spanish engineer, architect, archaeologist and Arabist, member of the Real Academia de la Historia, Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences, Real Academia Esp ...

, with whom he would maintain a lifelong personal and professional friendship. During those years, he made a special effort to identify signs of Roman presence in the area. In 1866, his order transferred him back to

Catalonia Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationalities and regions of Spain, nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 2006, Statute of Autonomy. Most of its territory (except the Val d'Aran) is situate ...

. Then, two years later, he was forced into exile again, due to the "

Glorious Revolution The Glorious Revolution, also known as the Revolution of 1688, was the deposition of James II and VII, James II and VII in November 1688. He was replaced by his daughter Mary II, Mary II and her Dutch husband, William III of Orange ...

". Once more, he went to France, not returning until 1870 and, after living in several places, settling in Bañolas. This time, he focused on finding and interpreting Hebrew inscriptions in

Girona Girona (; ) is the capital city of the Province of Girona in the autonomous community of Catalonia, Spain, at the confluence of the Ter, Onyar, Galligants, and Güell rivers. The city had an official population of 106,476 in 2024, but the p ...

; maintaining a correspondence with the archaeologist, , who was studying the mysterious sculptures that had been found near

Cerro de los Santos Cerro de los Santos is an Iberian culture, Iberian religious sanctuary built in the 4th century BCE, during the Iberian period, with evidence of continued use into the Roman period. The site lies in southeastern Spain near an ancient road. Little ...

. He was named an Academician at the

Real Academia de la Historia The Royal Academy of History (, RAH) is a Spanish institution in Madrid that studies history "ancient and modern, political, civil, ecclesiastical, military, scientific, of letters and arts, that is to say, the different branches of life, of c ...

in 1877; settling in Madrid, where he lived for over thirty years. He would eventually publish over 700 articles in the '' Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia'', a third of which deal with epigraphy. Most of the world's experts on that subject were his friends or acquaintances; notably

Emil Hübner Ernst Willibald Emil Hübner (7 July 183421 February 1901) was a German classical scholar. He was born at Düsseldorf, the son of the historical painter Julius Hübner (1806–1882). After studying at Berlin and Bonn, he traveled extensively wi ...

, who was preparing a supplement to the ''

Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum The ''Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum'' (''CIL'') is a comprehensive collection of ancient Latin inscriptions. It forms an authoritative source for documenting the surviving epigraphy of classical antiquity. Public and personal inscriptions throw ...

''. Fita was one of his primary informants on the project. In 1912, following the death of Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo, he was named Director of the Academia; a position he held until his death.

Sources

* Juan Manuel Abascal Palazón, ''Fidel Fita (1835-1918): su legado documental en la Real Academia de la Historia'',

, 1999
Google Books
* José Ferrándiz, ''Sotanas conocidas. Semblanzas de eclesiásticos españoles contemporáneos bajo cualquier concepto notables''. Madrid: Tipografía de la Sociedad de Publicaciones Históricas, 1913.

External links

Brief biography
@ the Real Academia de la Historia

by H. Gimeno Pascual and M. J. Albarrán Martínez @ Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum II {{DEFAULTSORT:Fita, Fidel 1835 births 1918 deaths 19th-century Spanish archaeologists Spanish philologists 20th-century Spanish archaeologists Spanish Jesuits People from Maresme