Pedro de Ribadeneira

Who was Pedro de Ribadeneira?

Pedro de Ribadeneira was a Spanish hagiologist.

He was born at Toledo, Spain. His father, Alvaro Ortiz de Cisneros, was the son of Pedro Gonzales Cedillo and grandson of Hernando Ortiz de Cisneros, whom Ferdinand IV had honoured with the governorship of Toledo and important missions.

As a lad, Pedro de Ribadeneira repaired to Rome for study, and there on 18 September 1540 was admitted by Ignatius of Loyola, in his thirteenth year, as one of the Society of Jesus, which had not yet received papal sanction. He pursued his studies at Universities of Paris, Leuven, and Padua in philosophy and theology.

He was ordered in November, 1549, to go to Palermo, to profess rhetoric at the new college which the Society had just opened in that city. He filled this chair for two years and a half, devoting his leisure time to visiting and consoling the sick in the hospitals. Meanwhile St. Ignatius was negotiating the creation of the German College which was to give Germany a chosen clergy as remarkable for virtue and orthodoxy as for learning: his efforts were soon successful, and during the autumn of 1552 he called on the talent and eloquence of the young professor of rhetoric at Palermo. Ribadeneira amply fulfilled the expectations of his master and delivered the inaugural address amid the applause of an august assembly of prelates and Roman nobles. He was ordained priest 8 December 1553; during the twenty-one years which followed he constantly filled the most important posts in the government of his order.