Pablo de Olavide: El espacio de la ilustracion y la reforma universitaria (review)

Pablo de Olavide: El espacio de la ilustración y la reforma universitaria. By JUAN MARCHENA FERNANDEZ. Seville: Junta de Andalucía, 2000. Plates. Appendixes. Bibliography. 231 pp. Cloth.

Pablo de Olavide (1725-1803) was an American-born jurist, who becameintendant of Seville, Spain, during the early reign of Charles III. The first son of a prominent limeño merchant, who had generous financial backing, Olavide enjoyed a meteoric ascent through the educational and administrative systems of Peru, receiving his appointment as oidor of the Royal Audiencia at age 20. Despite its promising start, Olavide's career failed to sustain the smooth sailing to which it at first seemed destined. The limeño suffered from an uncanny ability to self-destruct, although he commanded an equally astonishing ability to recuperate. An enlightened, courageous apostle of modernization, Olavide soon made enough enemies in Peru to find life intolerable. Taking refuge in Spain, he married so well that he could soon lay claim to the Intendancy of Andalusia in what was indeed a rare achievement for a creole. Remarkable was his reformist agenda, but his secularizing instincts brought him into conflict with the Inquisition and led to a spectacular downfall that attracted attention from all over Europe. Escape to France and a self-imposed exile resulted in a tumultuous interaction with the French Revolution, a return to Spain, and a reawakened religious piety during his declining years.

This remarkable figure had virtually disappeared from public memory in Seville, where no monument or any institution honored him, only the tiniest of streets, until the modern-day authorities found in him the appropriate namesake for the city's second university, which they established in 1997. Committed to an enlightened spirit, and with its halls and buildings named for the sages of the eighteenth century, La Universidad Pablo de Olavide has set its sights on strengthening the bridges between Spain and America, a connection that Olavide personified throughout his public life. Juan Marchena Fernández of the Faculty of Humanities crafted the present volume to celebrate the choice. Although more a synthesis than a piece of original research, this colorfully written volume is pregnant with insights into the era of the late Bourbons as it traces the ups and downs of Olavide's tumultuous career and later life.

According to Marchena, the young Olavide's difficulties stemmed from his aggressive involvement in the reconstruction of Lima following the earthquake of 1746, when his indifference to the sensitivities of the tradition-bound elite and the reactionary clergy, his deference to the needs of the lower estate, and his affection for the theater, combined to cast him as a rank outsider. "Olavide had managed . . . to bring down upon himself all the social and juridical mechanisms—more than abundant in a baroque society like that of Lima—aiming to destroy his power and to secure his destruction" (p. 26). Counsel from Viceroy Manso de Velasco persuaded the young limeñoto seek justice at court. Marchena traces the damaging legal struggle that ensued and, following that, Olavide's timely and fortunate marriage to a twice-widowed noblewoman, considerably his senior. His wife possessed the wealth to permit Olavide to travel widely in Europe, making the acquaintance of its luminaries, and to frequent the tertulias of Madrid where Spain's enlightened and powerful gathered. Connections and money, observes Marchena, also brought the Peruvian a full royal pardon for his alleged misdeeds back home.

Under these circumstances, Olavide, following several minor assignments in Madrid, secured an appointment as intendant of Andalusia in 1767 with the backing of Aranda and Campomanes. Marchena views the intendant's energy, courage, and achievements with deep admiration, particularly given the heated opposition that he encountered at every turn. Establishing himself in the Alcázar with a pomposity that raised eyebrows from the start, Olavide quickly clashed with the municipal government, the guilds, and...