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conclusion The Ideal Bishop and the End of Spanish Islam On 6 January 1611, Juan de Ribera passed away within the walls of his principal contribution to the city of Valencia, the Colegio de Corpus Christi. The drive to procure his beatification and canonization began at this moment, precisely when Ribera turned his legacy over to his followers. The success or failure of the many campaigns for the canonization of early modern Spaniards depended upon the influence and efficiency of the supporters who took up the cause as much as upon the actions of the putative saint in life. Ribera himself, for example, had assisted in the massive effort to collect information concerning the life and miracles of the Jesuit founder, Ignatius of Loyola.1 Along the same lines, Ribera’s supporters at the Colegio de Corpus Christi mounted a campaign to gather testimony to his life, with an eye toward the two miracles necessary for beatification. The new rector of the Colegio sent out a series of surveys to be administered to the people by the priests of the diocese, including questions such as, “Do they know that God bestowed great gifts upon his servant [Ribera] from an early age, preparing him with many blessings, skills, and natural and supernatural graces, and protecting him from the traps with which the enemy tried to impede him from the services which he was to give to God?”2 The leading nature of the survey questions prefigured the manner in which this information would be used by Ribera’s apologists, to create an image of the archbishop worthy of sainthood. One of the most important elements in the process of canonization in early modern Spain, along with local devotions, consisted of the hagiographical vida. This written life, codified and widely available, served as the linchpin of many successful campaigns for canonization. Almost immediately after his death, Ribera’s confessor and confidant of forty years, the Jesuit Francisco Escrivá (d. 1617), began assembling a biography of the archbishop.3 This rapid turnaround, along with the absence of any debate on the issue, strongly suggests that Ribera had chosen Escrivá to render his life in prose. Already in January 1611, Escrivá wrote to Diego Clavero in Madrid, seeking assistance in soliciting the necessary licenses from General Claudius Acquaviva.4 The following year, Escrivá circulated his growing manuscript to readers including Jerónimo Vilanova, the rector of the Jesuit College of San Pablo, and Bartolomé Pérez, the regional administrator (provincial) of the Jesuits in Spain. A few of his critics raised concerns, but all of these focused on the form of the work rather than any question surrounding its orthodoxy. Pérez, for example, argued that Escrivá should eliminate some of the lengthy examples of morals, such as humility and temperance, in favor of a more detailed chronological narrative of events. Clavero, upon hearing of this criticism, wrote to Escrivá encouraging him to stick to his guns: “Rewrite some of the moral exempla, but not so much that the history becomes naked. In all honesty I like the morals, and even if Father Bartolomé Pérez and the other learned ones do not need them, most of us are not so learned.”5 In Clavero’s mind, the facts of Ribera ’s life interested the elite few, whereas his timeless virtues should be an example to everyone. In this biography, published in 1612, Escrivá sought to address the two potential impediments to Ribera’s beatification: the fact that he never held a provincial council , as mandated by the Council of Trent, and his role in the expulsion of the moriscos. On the one hand, Escrivá provided countless examples of the many other ways in which the archbishop had implemented the decrees of Trent, such as his charitable donations, his tireless preaching, and his seven diocesan synods. He celebrated Ribera’s foundation of the Colegio de Corpus Christi in particular, calling it “second only to the Escorial in grandeur, richness, and beauty.”6 He further noted, perhaps in response to those who accused the archbishop of profligacy, that Ribera had selected the chaplains, musicians, and other attendants from among the poor. The archbishop built the ornate chapel with its paintings and sepulchers “such that the Eucharist might be venerated, honored, and exalted as much as possible by the faithful, in an age when the Host was so disrespected, humbled, and outraged by heretics.”7 In Escriv...

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