Ribadeneira, Peter

, a celebrated Spanish Jesuit, was born at Toledo, in 1527, and was enrolled by St. Ignatius among his favourite disciples in 1540, before the society of the Jesuits had received the papal sanction. In 1542 he studied at Paris, and afterwards at Padua, where he was sent to Palermo to teach rhetoric. After many,' and long travels for the propagation of the interests of the society in various parts of Europe, he died at Madrid, Oct. 1, 1611. One of his visits was with the duke of Feria to England, in 1558, and his inquiries here, or what he made subsequently, encouraged him to publish a treatise “On the English schism,” 1594, 8vo, in which, it is said, there is less rancour and acrimony than might have been expected, and some curious anecdotes respecting the personal character of queen Mary. He is, however, chiefly known for his Lives of various Saints and Jesuits, and as the founder of that biography of the Jesuits which Alegambe and others afterwards improved into a work of some importance. One of his principal lives, published separately, is that of the founder, St. Ignatius de Loyola. Of this work there have been several editions, the first in 1572, and the second with additions in 1587, in neither of which he ascribes any miracles to his master, and is so far from supposing any, that he enters into an inquiry, whence it could happen that so holy a man had not the gift of miracles bestowed upon him, and really assigns very sensible reasons. But notwithstanding all this, in an abridged edition of his life of Ignatius, published at Ipres in 1612, miracles are ascribed to Ignatius, and Ribadeneira is made to assign, as his reason for not inserting such accounts before, that though he heard of them in 1572, they were not sufficiently authenticated. Bishop Douglas, who is inclined to blame Ribadeneira for this insufficient apology, has omitted to notice that this Ipres edition of the life was published a year after Ribadeneira’s death, and therefore it is barely possible that the miracles, and all that is said about them, might have been supplied by some zealous brother of the order. His “Lives | of the Saints” were translated into English, and published in 2 vols. 8vo. ¹