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, Cataloni ...

- 13 January 1918,

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...

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

Biography

Born to a newly bourgeois family, at the age of ten he was sent to study grammar in

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern 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 ci ...

. In 1850, at the age of fifteen, he became a Jesuit. After studying at several of the order's other institutions, including one in

Nivelles, Belgium Nivelles (; nl, Nijvel, ; wa, Nivele; vls, Neyvel) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the Belgian province of Walloon Brabant. The Nivelles municipality includes the former municipalities of Baulers, Bornival, Thines, and Monstre ...

, where he studied rhetoric, 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. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the t ...

and

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece 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 ...

. 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 o ...

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

theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

and began his investigations into archaeology, history, and epigraphy. 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 (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a '' nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy. Most of the territory (except the Val d'Aran) lies on the nort ...

. Then, two years later, he was forced into exile again, due to the " Glorious Revolution". 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 (officially and in Catalan , Spanish: ''Gerona'' ) is a city in northern Catalonia, Spain, at the confluence of the Ter, Onyar, Galligants, and Güell rivers. The city had an official population of 103,369 in 2020. Girona is the capital ...

; maintaining a correspondence with the archaeologist, , who was studying the mysterious sculptures that had been found near Cerro de los Santos. He was named an Academician at the Real Academia de la Historia in 1877; settling in Madrid, where he lived for over thirty years. He would eventually publish over 700 articles in the Academia's ''Bulletin'', 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''. 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'', 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