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Francisco Pérez Bayer
Francisco Pérez Bayer | |
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.jpg) Portrait of Francisco Pérez Bayer, by Joaquín Inza. 1781. (University of Salamanca). |
Francisco Pérez Bayer y Benicassim (Valencia, November 11, 1711 – Valencia, January 27, 1794) was a Spanish philologist, numismatist and jurist.
Biography
Francisco Pérez Bayer y Benicassim was born at no. 6 Calle Palomar in the city of Valencia on November 11, 1711, and two days later he was baptized in the Church of the Santos Juanes in that same city.
His father was a native of Saldón (Teruel). His mother, Doña Josefa María Bayer, was a native of Castellón, as were his maternal grandparents, Pedro Bayer and Doña María Nos Cominges. The family owned extensive lands in what would later be called Benicassim.
He lost his father in early childhood and began his first studies between Benicassim and Valencia, at whose University he studied Theology. He studied for a bachelor's degree in canon law in Gandía. Drawn to the law, he moved to Salamanca to complete his studies in both Laws, becoming a member of the Juridical Academy of Salamanca.
In 1738 he went back to Valencia as secretary to Archbishop Mayoral, until he obtained the chair of Hebrew at the University of Salamanca. In 1749 he was associated with the Jesuit Andrés Marcos Burriel on the Archives Commission, in the course of whose work they put the archives of Toledo and El Escorial in order.
After the change of government under Ferdinand VI and the expulsion of the Jesuits from the government, Pérez Bayer won the favor of the new government headed by Ricardo Wall, and of figures such as Campomanes.
Around that time he went to Italy on a scholarship, where, in addition to cultivating his passion for antiquities, he had the opportunity to meet in person the great Hebraist Biagio Ugolino and the future monarch Charles III.
On his return to Spain he was appointed Canon Treasurer of Toledo Cathedral, and he compiled the catalog of manuscripts of the library of El Escorial. Following the expulsion of the Jesuits he was appointed tutor to the royal Infantes, a position from which he began to influence the government's cultural policy in areas such as the reform of the University and of the Colegios Mayores. It was then that he began to place his loyal followers in the principal cultural posts, such as the Reales Estudios de San Isidro, the post of Chronicler of the Indies, and the rectorship of the University of Valencia. He became a member of the Royal Economic Society of Friends of the Country of Valencia in 1776.
He obtained the post of head librarian of the Royal Library in 1783, displacing his enemy and rival for the same position, Juan de Santander, and he directed that important institution until 1794, undertaking numerous projects, such as the re-edition of the important bibliographies of Nicolás Antonio.
He was named an honorary academician of Saint Petersburg and Göttingen, took a very active part in the projects of the Royal Academy of History, and made an interesting journey through Andalusia and Portugal, of which he left us a manuscript account. He was the author of numerous works on historical and literary subjects and on Oriental languages, such as Hebrew and Phoenician.
Pérez Bayer's decision to build a church in Benicasim coincides in date with the then recent disappearance of what is now known as the Old Desierto de las Palmas. At his own expense, and having obtained the approval of His Majesty, Pérez Bayer had the church built on the land he owned in front of his house, and this decision is considered to have brought about the definitive founding of Benicasim, since it had the merit of gathering around the church he founded all the inhabitants, who until then had been scattered in small settlements and farmhouses (masías).
He wrote numerous books, to the point that Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo said of him that his works marked an epoch in the study of Hebrew numismatics. Francisco Cantó Blasco states that it was precisely in Benicasim that Pérez Bayer wrote his last work. It concerns a controversy he maintained with the Prussian scholar Dr. Olav Gerardo Tichen over the work published by Pérez Bayer entitled Vindiciae. The rejoinder was entitled Legitimidad de las monedas hebreo-samaritanas. Confutación de la diatriba de nummis hebraciis de Olav Gerardo Tichsen, Valencia, 1793.
Francisco Pérez Bayer was one of the most influential figures in 18th-century Spain, who from the Court managed to win the friendship of the Monarch, ministers and influential personalities, which allowed him to rise to the highest political, cultural and religious responsibilities of the time. He was a Canon of the chapters of Valencia, Barcelona, Salamanca and Toledo; professor of Hebrew in Valencia and Salamanca; Arabist, philologist, Hellenist, Latinist, archaeologist and numismatist.
The death of Pérez Bayer, which occurred in Valencia on January 27, 1794, was mourned and became a subject of comment in all the cultural circles of Spain.
Recognition
There is a portrait of him in the Paraninfo of the University of Valencia.
The cultural organization Acció pel Patrimoni Valencià, with the help of the City Council of Benicasim, agreed to proclaim 2011 the "Year of the Valencian Enlightenment," on the occasion of the tercentenary of the birth of Francisco Pérez Bayer.
Works
- Catálogo de la Real Biblioteca de El Escorial. Damaiuis et Laurentius Hispani, Rome, 1756.
- Del alfabeto y lengua de los fenicios y sus colonias, 1772.
- Viajes literarios. Valencia: Institución Alfonso el Magnánimo, 1998.
- Etimología de la lengua castellana.
- Viaje arqueológico desde Valencia a Andalucía y Portugal.
- De numis Hebraeo-Samaritanis
- De toletano hebraeorum templo
- Instituciones de la lengua hebrea.
- Origen de las voces españolas derivadas de las voces hebreas.
External links
- Mestre Sanchis, Antonio (2018). "Francisco Pérez Bayer". Diccionario Biográfico Español (in español). Real Academia de la Historia.
- Virtual Library of Polygraphs of the Ignacio Larramendi Foundation
