José Amador de los Ríos
Encyclopedia
José Amador de los Ríos y Serrano (30 April 1818 – 17 February 1878) was a Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 intellectual, primarily a historian and archaeologist of art
Art history
Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...

 and literature. He was a graduate in history of the Complutense University of Madrid
Complutense University of Madrid
The Complutense University of Madrid is a university in Madrid, and one of the oldest universities in the world. It is located on a sprawling campus that occupies the entirety of the Ciudad Universitaria district of Madrid, with annexes in the district of Somosaguas in the neighboring city of...

.

In 1844 he was the secretary of the Comisión Central de Monumentos. He was co-director with Antonio de Zabaleta of the ephemeral Boletín Español de Arquitectura, the first Spanish journal dedicated exclusively to architecture. It was only in publication from 1 June to December 1846. In 1852 he published the complete works of Íñigo López de Mendoza. It was Amador de los Ríos who first used the term mudejarismo to describe a style of architecture in 1859.

In 1861 he published the first volume of Historia crítica de la literatura española, the first general history of Spanish literature written in Spain. It was to remain incomplete. Ideologically Amador de los Ríos, a liberal
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...

 and romantic
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

, conceives of Spain as a unit, at once Roman Catholic and Castilian, a constitutional monarchy
Constitutional monarchy
Constitutional monarchy is a form of government in which a monarch acts as head of state within the parameters of a constitution, whether it be a written, uncodified or blended constitution...

 (thought it was not one yet) united with its past by an idea luminosa (luminous idea). Countering the foreign historians who regard medieval Spain as a backwater, he defends Spanish literature as the foremost among those which appeared after the Fall of Rome. Though he only covered the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

, he demonstrated that he regarded Spanish American literature as part of the Spanish tradition. In another work, Historia social, política y religiosa de los judíos de España, he accepts the Spanish Jewish literature
Jewish literature
Jewish Literature refers to works written by Jews on Jewish themes, literary works of various themes written in Jewish languages, or literary works in other languages written by Jewish writers. Ancient Jewish literature includes Biblical literature and rabbinic literature...

 as part of the tradition, since it "bloomed" in Spanish soil. Unlike Adolf de Castro
Adolf de Castro
Adolf de Castro was a Spanish historian and member of the Academia de la Historia of Madrid. He lived in Cadiz and died there in 1898....

, however, he did not condemn the Spanish Inquisition
Spanish Inquisition
The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition , commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition , was a tribunal established in 1480 by Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms, and to replace the Medieval...

.
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