Juan Ferreras

Who was Juan Ferreras?

Juan de Ferreras y García, Spanish priest who became one of the founder members of the Royal Spanish Academy in 1713 under King Philip V of Spain.

Once opened to the intellectuals the Royal Library by a decree of 1711, and its real opening in 1712 the Royal Librarian Gabriel Alvarez de Toledo died soon and there were pressures from the Jesuits to get Juan de Ferreras appointed as Royal Librarian. He coordinated the formal royal decrees on the Rules of Use of the Library in 1716, stating that the Director should be the Confessor of the King.

In 1717 and as a consequence of the role played by the Catalans supporting during the Spanish Succession War the Habsburg rulers of Austria rather than the French Bourbons, it was created in Catalunya a new University in Cervera, resulting in the disappearance of the University of Barcelona.

Such new and single University for all the Catalunya territory recruited many Jesuit priests teaching before at the Barcelona Colegio de Cordelles and therefore would be mainly controlled by the Jesuits.

Further, the Seminario de Nobles of Madrid, created in 1727 would be also strongly influenced by the Jesuits. As the Royal Library got as a rule to receive no less than one book printed in Spain since then, the amount of all kinds of information available to such people began to increase exponentially. But this apparent state of things was no useful to the New Dynasty.