Juan Alfonso de Polanco

The following has been excerpted from Year by Year with the Early Jesuits: Selections from the Chronicon of Juan de Polanco, S.J., ed. John Patrick Donnelly, S.J. (St. Louis: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2004), ix–xiii.

It has been claimed that the six most important early Jesuits were Ignatius of Loyola, Francis Xavier, Francis Borgia, Diego Laínez, Jerónimo Nadal, and Juan Alfonso de Polanco.[1. Richard H. Dowling, “Juan de Polanco: 1517-1576,” The Woodstock Letters 69 (1940): 19. In addition to Dowling’s article (pp. 1-20), there is an overview of Polanco’s life and work by Cándido de Dalmases in Diccionario de la historia de la Compañia de Jesús, ed. Charles E. O’Neill, S.J., and Joaquin M. Domíngues, S.J. (Rome: Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu (IHSI); Madrid: Universidad Pontificia Comillas, 2001), 4:3168 f. Arturo Codina, in his introduction to the first volume of Polanci complementa (vols. 52 and 54 of the series Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu (MHSI; Madrid, 1916–17)), gives a short biography of Polanco (pp. vi-xxi) and an overview of his writings (xxi-xxviii).] There are recent biographies in English of them all except Polanco, who remains relatively unknown. Who was he, and why is he important?

Polanco was born in Burgos, Spain, December 24, 1517; his father was a wealthy and prominent merchant, who sent him at age thirteen to the University of Paris, where he studied classical languages, literature, and philosophy for nine years and earned a master’s degree in 1538. His family then secured for him the post of apostolic notary in the papal curia. He was on the fast track for a position in the papal curia or possibly back in Spain. But at Rome he met Laínez, made the Spiritual Exercises under his direction and decided to enter the Jesuits in 1541. The next year he was sent to Padua with Father André des Freux to set up a Jesuit collegio (understood in those days to mean a Jesuit community for students) and to study theology at the University of Padua, then regarded as the finest in Italy. Polanco spent four years there. His studies at both Paris and Padua influenced the legislation on schools in the later Jesuit Constitutions.[2. Polanco’s Padua years are studied by Angelo Martini, “Gli studi teologici di Giovanni de Polanco alle origini della legislazione scolastica della Compagnia di Gesú,” Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu (AHSI) 21 (1952): 225–81.] Laínez visited the Padua community in 1545 and wrote short evaluations of each of its members; here is his entry on Polanco: “about thirty years old, short in stature, not very imposing, weak eyesight but otherwise healthy and hardworking.”[3. László Lukács, “La catalogue-modèle du Père Laínes (1545),” AHSI 26 (1957): 64.]

In 1546 he was ordained a priest at Padua and was sent to do some pastoral work at Bologna, Pistoia, Pisa, and the other Tuscan towns. More eventful was his work at Florence with Duke Cosimo dei Medici and his wife Eleonora de Toledo, to whom he sent a letter of spiritual advice that seems to have displeased both of them; this and Polanco’s ministry to men opposed to the Medici may have contributed to the waning interest of the duke and duchess in financing a Jesuit college. Worse still, Polanco encountered his brother Luis, a successful merchant at Florence, who shared his family’s disgust with Juan’s entering the Jesuits. When Luis could not persuade Juan to leave the Jesuits, he had him imprisoned in his home. Juan escaped through a window and down a rope and fled to Pistoia and the palace of his friend, the local bishop. But Luis used his influential friends at Florence to have Juan arrested and returned to Florence. Loyola, however, intervened with Duke Cosimo and had Polanco sent to Rome.[4. Dowling, “Juan de Polanco,” 7.]

Ignatius then appointed Polanco secretary of the Society. Juan spent most of his next twenty-five years at Rome as secretary of the Society under the first three Jesuit generals, Ignatius of Loyola (March 1547–July 1556), Diego Laínez (July 1558–January 1565), and Francis Borgia (July 1556–October 1572). Polanco may have been an ineffective fundraiser at Florence, but at Rome he was the perfect fit as secretary. Somehow amid his other duties Polanco managed to find time for several ministries while at Rome; in the Chronicon (vol. 1, §168) he tells us that he used to hear confessions and preach in the nearby church and teach catechism. He even worked in the kitchen and dining room at humble tasks. Later he accompanied Laínez to the Colloquy of Poissy in 1561 and even served with Laínez as a papal theologian in the last sessions of the Council of Trent in 1563, where he made a presentation on the sacrament of holy orders. During 1571 and 1572 he was Borgia’s companion on a journey to Spain, Portugal, and France for important dealings with the kings of those three countries.

Polanco governed the Society as vicar-general from the death of Borgia in October 1572 until the Third Jesuit General Congregation met in April 1573. Polanco probably would have been elected the fourth general of the Jesuits, but there were outside interventions by powerful rulers. A Portuguese delegate, Leon Enriquez, presented a letter from the Portuguese king objecting to the election of anybody of Jewish descent. Polanco seems to have been the target here, although it is far from clear that he was of Jewish ancestry. More critical were two interventions by Gregory XIII, who urged the delegates to elect a non-Spaniard, because the previous three generals had all been Spaniards. The congregation elected Everard Mercurian, a Belgian subject of Philip II, so the Spanish king was unlikely to object to the choice. Mercurian made Antonio Possevino secretary of the Society because he had worked closely with Possevino in France. Polanco spent two years, early 1573 to February 1575, at Rome dictating his Chronicon to an unknown amanuensis.[5. The manuscripts of the Chronicon are discussed in vol. 2 of the Fontes narrativi de S. Ignatio de Loyola et de Societatis Iesu initiis, ed. Candido de Dalmases, vol. 73 of MHSI (Rome: 1951), 30*–33*. They are in the Roman Archives of the Society of Jesus located in the Jesuit Curia in Rome. The main set of manuscripts is in folio and is listed as Hist. Soc. 67, 68 I–II and 69 I–II. Hist 67 covers 1549 to 1551. Hist. Soc. 68 I–II covers 1552 to 1554. Hist. Soc. 69 I–II covers 1555 to 1556. The life of Ignatius and the Chronicon for 1537 to 1549 are found in Hist. Soc. 5.] In 1575 Mercurian appointed Polanco visitor to the Sicilian Province. There he was seriously sick several times and returned in broken health to Rome, where he died December 20, 1576.

In addition to the Chronicon, Polanco was a popular writer of spiritual tracts. His most notable short works were a directory on how to make a good confession (Breve directorium ad confessarii et confitentis munus rite obeundum concinnatum [Rome, 1554]), which emerged in some forty editions in Latin, and his tract on the art of dying, written to help priests carry out this ministry (Methodus ad eos adjuvandos qui moriuntur [Macerata, 1575]), which went into twenty Latin editions. Both these works were also republished many times in vernacular translations. His Monita vitae spiritualis was written sometime between 1562 and 1575, but was published posthumously at Cologne in 1622. He also wrote an early directory on how to give the Spiritual Exercises.[6. For a description of Polanco’s spiritual writings, see Jean-Francois Gilmont, Les Écrits spiritueles des premiers Jésuites (Rome: IHSI, 1961), 196–208. For the various editions of his works, see Carlos Sommervogel, Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus (Brussels and Paris, 1890–1932; reprinted Héverlé-Louvain, 1960) 6:939–47.]

It is hard to exaggerate the importance of Polanco’s work as Loyola’s secretary. Two of the best recent historians of the early Jesuits, Mario Scaduto and John O Malley, have called Polanco Loyola’s alter ego. Loyola’s enormous correspondence fills twelve volumes in the section of the MHSI series called the Monumenta Ignatiana. There are only 152 letters before March 1547, when Polanco took over as secretary; thereafter, the Monumenta edition contains 6,590 letters. Polanco was a more skilled writer than Loyola, especially in Latin and Italian. Often Loyola dictated the outline of a letter; Polanco would write the text, Loyola would make some corrections and then sign it. Often Loyola had Polanco write letters to Jesuits ex commissione: “Dear Father X, Father Ignatius has commissioned me to tell you to do this or that.” The work of Polanco as Loyola’s secretary has been studied in detail by Clara Englander.[7. Clara Englander, Ignatius von Loyola und Johannes von Polanco: Der Ordensstifer und sein Sekretär (Regensburg: Pustet, 1965).] Polanco played a considerable role in helping Loyola write the Jesuit Constitutions and made the official Latin translation of the original Spanish text. The interaction of the two in drawing up the has been described thus by Arturo Codina in his long introduction to this document in its MHSI edition: Loyola was the author, Polanco was the redactor.[8. “De labore polanci,” in Constitutiones II (MHSI no. 64 (1936)), cixiv–cxcii, especially cxc–cxci. Polanco’s role in writing the Constitutions is also discussed in Ignatius of Loyola, The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, ed. and trans. George Ganss, S.J. (St. Louis: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1970), pp. 49–55. Polanco’s role has been the subject of controversy, which Ganss summarizes with bibliographic references (55).] Polanco’s own correspondence and minor writings are found in the Polanci complementa (see n. 2 above). The second volume of the Complementa contains Polanco’s short chronicle of Jesuit history covering the period 1564 to 1573.[9. “Commentariola Polanciana,” 635–723.]

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