Juan Páez de Castro ''"Paccius"'' (c.1512–1570) was a Spanish

Jesuit , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...

Priest and confessor to King

Philip II of Spain Philip II) in Spain, while in Portugal and his Italian kingdoms he ruled as Philip I ( pt, Filipe I). (21 May 152713 September 1598), also known as Philip the Prudent ( es, Felipe el Prudente), was King of Spain from 1556, King of Portugal from ...

. Educated at

Alcalá de Henares Alcalá de Henares () is a Spanish city in the Community of Madrid. Straddling the Henares River, it is located to the northeast of the centre of Madrid. , it has a population of 193,751, making it the region's third-most populated Municipalities ...

Salamanca Salamanca () is a city in western Spain and is the capital of the Province of Salamanca in the autonomous community of Castile and León. The city lies on several rolling hills by the Tormes River. Its Old City was declared a UNESCO World Heritag ...

and

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...

, he was well-versed in Greek and Latin. After touring the libraries of Italy, he came to appreciate their great value. Thus, Páez de Castro became among the first to recognize the usefulness of a state-funded library and drafted a proposal to

requesting such. As a result of his proposal a royal library was built at

El Escorial El Escorial, or the Royal Site of San Lorenzo de El Escorial ( es, Monasterio y Sitio de El Escorial en Madrid), or Monasterio del Escorial (), is a historical residence of the King of Spain located in the town of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, u ...

, which was completed after his death. Fadul, Valeria López. "Juan Páez de Castro and the Project of a Universal Library." ''Pacific Coast Philology'' 52, no. 2 (2017): 173-183. He also helped to develop a demographic survey to study the population of Spain, although he died before the survey was actually implemented.

References

* Hobson, Anthony. ''Renaissance Book Collecting''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. * Burton, Margaret. ''Famous Libraries of the World: Their History, Collections, and Administrations''. London: Grafton and Co., 1937. *Pelegrín, Marta Albalá. "Wars of Knowledge: Iberian Imperial Hegemony and the Assembling of Libraries." ''Pacific Coast Philology'' 52, no. 2 (2017): 166-172. {{DEFAULTSORT:Castro, Juan Paez De 1512 births 1570 deaths 16th-century Spanish Jesuits University of Salamanca alumni University of Bologna alumni 16th-century Spanish philosophers