Martín Fernández de Navarrete

Martín Fernández de Navarrete
Martín Fernández de Navarrete, by Francisco Díaz Carreño. Ca. 1881. (Museo del Prado, Madrid).
Born	Martín Fernández de Navarrete y Ximénez de Tejada (1765-11-08)November 8, 1765 Ábalos, La Rioja, Kingdom of Spain
Died	October 8, 1844(1844-10-08) (aged 78) Madrid, Kingdom of Spain
Education	Naval studies in the Spanish Navy
Occupations	Naval officer, historian, politician
Organization(s)	Royal Spanish Academy, Royal Academy of History, Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, Royal Geographical Society of London, among others
Known for	Called the "Mariner Historian" and considered "the last encyclopedist"; fields: History of Spain, Naval history, Enlightenment in Spain
Notable work	Colección de los viages y descubrimientos que hicieron por mar los españoles desde fines del siglo XV (1825–1837)
Awards	Numerous academic honors and decorations

Martín Fernández de Navarrete y Ximénez de Tejada (Ábalos, La Rioja, November 8, 1765 – Madrid, October 8, 1844) was a Spanish naval officer, politician, intellectual and historian associated with the Enlightenment. He was a prominent member of numerous national and international academies and is considered one of the great Spanish scholars of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Nicknamed the "Mariner Historian", he devoted much of his life to researching the Spanish naval and colonial archives, vindicating the role of the Hispanic Monarchy in the exploration and discovery of the world. Vicente Palacio Attard described him as "the last encyclopedist".

His most influential work was the Colección de los viages y descubrimientos que hicieron por mar los españoles desde fines del siglo XV, published in five volumes by the Imprenta Real (1825–1837). In it he compiled and edited unpublished documents on Spanish explorations, dismantling erroneous attributions made by other European powers. Alexander von Humboldt praised the work, considering it "one of the greatest historical monuments of modern times".

In addition to his historiographical work, Fernández de Navarrete played an active political role in an era marked by the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Invasion of Spain, the Liberal Triennium and the Ominous Decade. In that context he was sought after by both absolutists and liberals, which caused him difficulties at various points in his public career.

Biography

Martín Fernández de Navarrete was the grandson of the Knight of the Order of Calatrava Francisco Fernández de Navarrete y de Zárate (born in Navarrete in 1684) and the son of the nobles Francisco Antonio Fernández de Navarrete y Ramírez de la Piscina, a native of Ábalos and a descendant of the King of Navarre and of El Cid, and of the Navarrese Catalina Ximénez de Tejada y Argáiz, born in Funes.

He studied Latin grammar in Calahorra with the priest Ildefonso Caballero. He received part of his education at the enlightened Seminary of Nobles of Vergara, run by the Royal Basque Society of Friends of the Country. In 1780 he entered the Navy as a midshipman, seeing combat as early as 1782 and being promoted to frigate ensign. Poor health forced him to leave his duties temporarily. This opened the doors to a new world for him: history. From 1789, commissioned by the Ministry of the Navy for three years, he devoted himself to compiling Spanish maritime history. His tireless research in the archives of Spain and Portugal led him to discover the files of three of the voyages of Christopher Columbus, as well as Columbus's two logs of the first and third voyages.

In the war with France after the French Revolution (1793–1795) he returned to active service, being promoted to ship-of-the-line captain. He was a friend of Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos and of Félix María Samaniego, and he collected their manuscripts and wrote their first biography.

Although some authors have published that he later collaborated with the French occupation of Joseph I Bonaparte, attributing to him the status of an afrancesado, the reality after the French invasion of 1808 is much more complex, as Jesús Fernando Cáseda Teresa indicates in his work "Martín Fernández de Navarrete y la literatura de su tiempo":

"In this situation Fernández de Navarrete appears doubtful and hesitant. He is a good friend of many of the afrancesados who, from 1808 onward, hold the reins of the country, but as a good patriot he sees the opposite example of many others such as the Iriartes, or Jovellanos himself, who heads the Central Governing Junta, [...]. For them, his negative answer [that of Martín Fernández de Navarrete] to swearing an oath of loyalty to the intruder king does not hide a certain doubt and a certain undisguised desire to avoid commitment. Above all when that request comes from the then Minister of the Navy, his old friend don José de Mazarredo"

As cited by the historians J. F. Cáseda Teresa and Carlos Seco Serrano in his Introduction to his edition of the "Obras de D. Martín Fernández de Navarrete", the answer given by Martín Fernández de Navarrete y Ximénez de Tejada to José de Mazarredo when the latter asked him to become involved in the government of Spain under the French occupation was this:

"It is repugnant to my conscience and to natural law to contribute to the death of my parents, brothers and relatives, and in short to that of my whole nation, by binding myself to a cause which is being resisted with arms in hand. In such circumstances all that can be demanded of me is that I be a peaceful citizen, and under these considerations I resign all my posts that might force me to act against these principles of honor, patriotism and sound morality." [Martín Fernández de Navarrete y Ximénez de Tejada].

The fact is that Martín Fernández de Navarrete was a great encyclopedist and a great man of the Enlightenment—an ideological movement that arose in France—but he did not for that reason sympathize with the French. According to Cáseda:

"In fact, when Joseph Bonaparte arrived in Spain, Navarrete, together with his colleagues of the Council of the Navy, opposed not only swearing obedience to the intruder but even went so far as to express in writing his ideas against the invaders. In December 1808, on the occasion of the second arrival of the French in Madrid, he was taken prisoner and ordered to be deported to France; but José de Mazarredo, his good friend, then Minister of the intruder king, managed to have the order withdrawn. Fernández de Navarrete continued to persist in his hostile attitude toward the French and, renouncing his high salary, resigned from his post"

However, in 1810 there would be grounds for confusion:

"In May 1810 the influential Mariano Luis de Urquijo offered him the post of Intendant of the Navy [Minister], for which he would have had to move to El Puerto de Santa María. But by then Mazarredo, once again insisting, appointed him, without his knowledge or involvement, a member of the Order founded by Joseph [Bonaparte], so that in everyone's eyes Navarrete passed for one more afrancesado, above all when his appointment appeared in the Gaceta de Madrid alongside those of his good friends Carlos Pignatelli and van Halen, which no doubt scandalized the patriots"

Portrait of Martín Fernández de Navarrete in the Naval Museum of Madrid.

In a poor financial situation due to the long duration of the French occupation, which hampered economic production, in 1811 he accepted the direction of the "Reales Estudios de San Isidro", according to Cáseda "thinking that such a post, apolitical in nature, could not be used as an excuse for a later purge, but he was mistaken".

Once the French occupation was over, he had to defend himself against the attacks of those who considered that he should not have accepted the educational post at the "Reales Estudios de San Isidro". Amid the confusion that reigned after the end of the Napoleonic invasion, he finally managed, at the end of 1814, to have this controversy officially closed, obtaining the royal pardon.

In 1814 he was appointed secretary of the Royal Academy of Noble Arts of San Fernando.

Likewise, it was in 1814, when Ferdinand VII returned to Madrid, that the text written by Martín Fernández de Navarrete entitled "Oración para felicitar al señor Rey don Fernando VII por su feliz advenimiento al trono" welcomed the monarch to his reign on behalf of the Royal Spanish Academy, although it had originally been written in 1808.

In fact, within the turbulent times in which he lived, there is an anecdote typical of the unpredictable Spanish 19th century, with its division between Fernandine absolutists and Liberals, and in turn the latter's division between moderate and exalted liberals, in which King Ferdinand VII flatters Martín Fernández de Navarrete despite considering him "a liberal":

"[...] Ferdinand VII, on his return from exile, will recognize Navarrete as a liberal, although "a liberal as all of us ought to be" [phrase uttered by Ferdinand VII about Navarrete], a curious anecdote that perfectly explains his commitment to work and duty rather than to the extremist exaltation of ideas. One of his biographers, Louis Vidart, was able to express this spirit of the enlightened Fernández de Navarrete perfectly and with keen insight: "His political ideas inspired in him neither great enthusiasms nor harsh intransigence, for he wished to live in peace during the upheavals of the liberal period begun by the Revolution of the year 1820". Indeed, even years later, after the return of the King [Ferdinand VII], he would publish some of his works at the King's expense and under his protection".

In any case, although Martín Fernández de Navarrete was politically active as a senator and as a Councillor of the Council of Spain and the Indies (Consejo de España y de Yndias) even during the reign of Isabella II (who reigned from 1833 to 1868), he always stood out more for his intellectual activity than for his political activity.

Fernández de Navarrete was born in 1765 during the prolific reign of Charles III (who reigned from 1759 to 1788), when Spain was still the foremost political structure in the world, and he died in 1844, during the reign of Isabella II (who reigned from 1833 to 1868), when Spain had lost much of its continental American colonial empire—the only main colonial entities still remaining were the Captaincies General of the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Cuba, which would be lost in 1898, after the death of Martín Fernández de Navarrete. In between came the reigns of Charles IV and Ferdinand VII, the latter being the reign during which Spain lost much of its world leadership.

This is how Palacio Attard describes the last speech of Fernández de Navarrete (1765–1844), in 1843. He had been appointed director of the Academy of History in 1824, and in his address to the Royal Academy of History, a few months before his death in 1844, he described the period in which he had lived:

"On December 15, 1843, Fernández de Navarrete read the speech in which, as on similar previous occasions, he gave an account, as director, of the academic activities during the preceding three-year period, before proceeding to the re-election to the post [of director of the Royal Academy of History]. That was to be one of his last academic addresses, and he lamented the delay in the corporate work "which—he said—by its nature requires calm and tranquil times for its cultivation, and the encouragement and protection of Governments for its progress and prosperity: circumstances that are not found amid the repeated and tumultuous revolutions" of recent times."

Father of Riojan provincialism

Martín Fernández de Navarrete was born in Ábalos, into one of the oldest lineages of La Rioja, and lived his early years in the enormous Palace located in Ábalos belonging to the Fernández de Navarrete family. The palace where he was born was built in the 17th century by the Ramírez de la Piscina—his third surname, being the surname of his maternal grandmother—and in the 17th century after the marriage of Martín Fernández de Navarrete with Catalina Ramírez de la Piscina, a descendant of El Cid and of the King of Navarre, whose ancestors founded the Divisa Solar Casa Real de la Piscina.

After his training as a midshipman of the Spanish Navy and Martín Fernández de Navarrete's studies at the Seminary of Nobles of Vergara (Gipuzkoa), he lived in Madrid for most of his adult life. However, he never forgot his native land, La Rioja. Despite attempts to move his body to the Pantheon of Illustrious Men in Madrid, he currently lies buried in the pantheon of the Fernández de Navarrete family, located in the Church of San Esteban in Ábalos, La Rioja, where he had expressed his wish to be buried before dying in Madrid in 1844.

He never forgot his native land, and in fact, in those early years of the 19th century when the territorial reorganization of Spain was taking place through the Spanish provincial division, which would culminate in 1833 with the division of Francisco Javier de Burgos, Fernández de Navarrete took part in the decision-making process.

There were several earlier division projects, and it was in 1821 that Martín Fernández de Navarrete intervened to influence the provincial division so that La Rioja would be kept as a province, something in which he was able to intervene thanks to his influence at the Court in Madrid:

"[...] on the occasion of the birth of his first grandson he made a trip to La Rioja and there, on learning that there were plans to incorporate La Rioja into either Burgos or Soria, D. Martín wrote a curious pamphlet entitled "Juicio Crítico de la exposición dirigida al Congreso nacional por unos apoderados de Soria para que no se altere el estado presente de su provincia y capital. carta de un riojano a un diputado a cortes en la cual se ilustran con este motivo varios puntos históricos y geográficos de la Rioja", which he published in Madrid under the pseudonym "D. Justo Patricio de España". A curious document unknown to many of our regional politicians [of the Autonomous Community of La Rioja], and one which constitutes a precious precedent for the defense of the unique and individual nature of La Rioja, in which he goes on to sketch some of the marks of identity that are its own".

He was also a member of the Riojan Society of Friends of the Country and its representative at court, taking an active part in its political demands.

Work

Colección de viajes y descubrimientos, from 1837.

The work of Martín Fernández de Navarrete was very extensive, combining historical research on Spanish maritime explorations and on nautical science, as well as on literature, Fine Arts and history within the Royal Academies, together with short works and biographies of important figures in the history of Spain.

His work was translated into French, English, German and many other languages.

Among Fernández de Navarrete's best-known biographies, in 1819 he published "Vida de Cervantes", one of the key works for understanding the universal writer, and which brought about the revival of Don Quixote in the 19th century. After the biography by Gregorio Mayáns y Siscar, it was the second time that a biography of Miguel de Cervantes had been published, rigorously documented thanks to the searches in the national archives that Navarrete had been carrying out.

Among the works produced within the Royal Academies, of special importance is the Ortografía de la lengua castellana of the Royal Spanish Academy, published in 1815, whose main rules remain in force more than 200 years later, and of which Navarrete was "to a large extent the maker".

Equally important is his discourse "Disertación Histórica sobre la parte que tuvieron los españoles en las guerras de Ultramar o de las Cruzadas y cómo influyeron estas expediciones desde el siglo XI hasta el XV en la extensión del comercio marítimo y en los progresos del arte de navegar", originally published in Volume V of the Royal Academy of History in 1816, which was the "germ of his later studies": Fernández de Navarrete was also a pioneer in the study of the presence of Spaniards in the Crusades, which until then had been denied by many authors.

Alexander Von Humboldt wrote of this work by Fernández de Navarrete:

"In the year 1825 the learned world was compensated for this loss with the publication of the "Colección de viajes y descubrimientos que hicieron por mar los españoles desde finales del siglo XV". This work by DON MARTÍN FERNÁNDEZ DE NAVARRETE, undertaken on a vast scale and written in all its parts with a spirit of enlightened criticism, is one of the greatest historical monuments of modern times".

His works on the Spanish history of Spanish maritime exploration recovered for posterity all the deeds and feats of the 15th and 16th centuries.

Among them is the principal work of Martín Fernández de Navarrete: "Colección de los viages y descubrimientos que hicieron por mar los españoles desde fines del siglo XV: con varios documentos inéditos concernientes á la historia de la marina castellana y de los establecimientos españoles en Indias". It consists of five extensive volumes and was printed by the Imprenta Real between 1825 and 1837.

Fernández de Navarrete's greatest contribution was to catalog multiple Spanish explorations that had lain in the archives since the 15th century, carried out by navigators in the service of the Hispanic Monarchy before any other navigator, thereby helping to dismantle fabrications about explorations that the English and French carried out after the Spanish navigators.

Distinctions

The Curriculum Vitae of Martín Fernández de Navarrete y Ximénez de Tejada published by the Royal Academy of History after his death was impressive, to say the least. These are some of his distinctions:

• Councillor of State.
• Senator.
• Director of the Royal Academy of History (RAH) from 1824. Member from 1800.
• Knight of the Order of Malta (admitted in 1777).
• Grand Cross of the Royal American Order of Ysabel the Catholic.
• Commander of the Legion of Honor of France.
• Member of the Council of Spain and the Yndias.
• Director of the Hydrographic Depot.
• Ex officio member of the Board of the Admiralty.
• Vice-protector of the Royal Academy of Noble Arts of San Fernando.
• Dean of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE).
• Member of the Institute of France.
• of the Historical [Institute] of Rio de Janeiro.
• of the Academy of Saint Luke of Rome.
• of the [Academy] of Sciences of Turin.
• of that of Berlin.
• of the Societies of Antiquaries of Copenhagen and of Normandy.
• of the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia.
• of those of Geography of Paris and of London.
• of the Matritense Economic Society.
• Secretary of the deputation at court of the Riojan Society of Friends of the Country.

And of several others of the Kingdom of Spain.

Works

• Fernández de Navarrete, Martín (1825–37) Colección de los viages y descubrimientos que hicieron por mar los españoles desde fines del siglo XV: con varios documentos inéditos concernientes á la historia de la marina castellana y de los establecimientos españoles en Indias, 5 vols., Madrid: Imprenta Real. v.1 (1825), v.2 (1825), v.3 (1829), v.4 (1837), v. 5 (1837)
• Vida de Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, escrita e ilustrada con varias noticias y documentos inéditos pertenecientes a la historia y literatura de su tiempo. Madrid, 1819.[1]
• Disertación sobre la historia de la náutica. Madrid, 1846.
• Biblioteca marítima española. Posthumous work of señor Martín Fernández de Navarrete. Madrid: Viuda de Calero, 1851, 2 volumes.
• Viajes de Américo Vespucio. Ed. Espasa-Calpe. Madrid, 2003. ISBN 8467011149. Previous edition titled Viajes de Américo Vespucio con un mapa, Madrid, Espasa-Calpe, 1935, VII + 195 p.: digital facsimile at the Virtual Library of Bibliographic Heritage.
• Colección de Documentos Inéditos para la Historia de España. Unfinished. Madrid, 1844.
• Disertación Histórica sobre la parte que tuvieron los españoles en las guerras de Ultramar o de las Cruzadas [...]. Volume V. Royal Academy of History. Madrid. 1816

Posthumous work:

• Colección de opúsculos del Excmo. Sr. D. Martín Fernández de Navarrete. Madrid. 1848. v.1 v.2
• Juicio Crítico de la exposición dirigida al Congreso nacional por unos apoderados de Soria para que no se altere el estado presente de su provincia y capital. carta de un riojano a un diputado a cortes en la cual se ilustran con este motivo varios puntos históricos y geográficos de la Rioja. Published by Martín Fernández de Navarrete under the pseudonym D. Justo Patricio de España. Imprenta de Miguel de Burgos. Madrid, 1821.

Bibliography

• Cáseda Teresa, J. F. Martín Fernández de Navarrete y la literatura de su tiempo. Instituto de Estudios Riojanos. Gobierno de la Rioja. Logroño, 2000. ISBN 84-89362-86-6
• Juretschke, Hans. Los Afrancesados en la Guerra de la Independencia. Biblioteca de la Historia de España. SARPE, Madrid 1986. ISBN 84-7700-021-2
• Pando Villarroya, José Luis de. Colón y Fernández de Navarrete. Pando Ediciones. Madrid. 1984. ISBN 84-398-1598-0
• Instituto de Historia y Cultura Naval. Martín Fernández de Navarrete. El marino Historiador. (1765-1844). Cuadernos Monográficos del Instituto de Historia y Cultura Naval. N.º 24 Madrid. 1995.

External links

• Works by Martín Fernández de Navarrete at the Internet Archive