- Juan de Atienza
Juan de Atienza (born at
Tordehumos , nearValladolid , in Spain, in 1546) was a SpanishJesuit missionary in South America.Life
He was the eldest son of the royal Councillor of Castile,
Bartolome de Atienza , a distinguished jurisconsult underCharles V of Spain . He studied law at theUniversity of Salamanca , but in 1564 forsook the legal career in order to become a Jesuit.While in Spain, he was Prefect of the College of
Avila , Procurator of the Province of his order, founder of the College ofVilla Garcia , its rector and master of novices, and rector of the College of Valladolid. He learned of a call for fifty Jesuits, to be sent toPeru ; he asked permission to become one of their number.He reached
Lima in 1581 and found there his appointment as rector of the College of San Pablo. In that capacity he was surrogate to the Provincial, FatherBaltasar de Piñas , and founded, under the direction of the Company of Jesus, theCollege of San Martin , the first school of secular learning established at Lima. The foundation of that school was confirmed byPope Sixtus V , in 1585, and Father Atienza became its first rector.In 1580 he was made Provincial of the Jesuits in Peru. He fostered and extend the missions in
Ecuador , theGran Chaco ,Tucuman andParaguay . Out of these efforts the province of Paraguay was born in 1607. During that period a printing press was established by the Jesuits at the Indian village ofJuli . Jointly with FatherJose de Acosta , he directed the publication ofcatechism s and textbooks of Christian doctrine for the use of the Indians. These religious primers were printed between the years 1583 and 1590, at Lima. They are in Spanish,Quichua , and Aymará.
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