Tomás Francés de Urrutigoyti

Life

Tomás Francés de Urrutigoyti y Lerma, OFM Obs., was born at Saragossa to Martín Francés de Urrutigoyti and Petronila de Lerma, early in the 1600s.1 So his family name is Francés de Urrutigoyti, but he is usually just called “Urrutigoyti.” His father was royal vice-treasurer and known for his virtue and benefactions. Two of Tomás’s brothers, Miguel Antonio and Diego Antonio, published works on canon law, and the latter was a bishop. Baltasar Gracián, SJ, was a friend and admirer of the family: he dedicated the third part of his philosophical novel, El Criticón (1657), to one of the elder brothers, Lorenzo, Dean of Sigüenza. In the dedication, he praises several members of the family, saying this about our author:

May the very Rev. Friar Tomás Frances be a religious crown, a bright torch of the Seraphic Religion, scattering rays: of his ample doctrine in the pulpits—to which bear witness the two Lents he preached in this Royal Hospital of Saragossa, an arena for the most talented—of his abundant theology in many years as a professor, of his erudition in his printed books, and of his prudence in the positions of responsibility and authority that he obtained, and in the fact that was [General] Secretary under two Generals of his Order, a double proof of his many merits.2

To this sketch we can add that Tomás was a lector jubilatus, a guardian, and the provincial of Aragon. Besides teaching in his own order (at Saragossa), it seems he also taught at the city’s university. He also served as an assessor (calificador) for the Spanish Inquisition3 and a synodal examiner for various dioceses. He died in 1682 in Saragossa, in the friary of St. Francis.4

Works

The first published work associated with our Urrutigoyti’s name is Contra la peste del vicio, 2 vols. (Zaragoza: 1653): some authors have erroneously attributed it to him. His name does appear on the title page, but this is because he wrote the dedication for this posthumous work of Bishop Juan Serrano Ortiz (†1637).

His known works are:5

  1. Discurso sobre el lugar que deben ocupar los religiosos franciscanos cuando van a argüir a la Universidad de Zaragoza, sin prejuicio de los religiosos agustinos. Zaragoza: no date.
  2. Muerte de Jezabel, en las Ferias mayores de la Quaresma. Zaragoza: Por los herederos de Pedro de Verges, 1658. Biblioteca Digital Hispánica.
  3. Certamen scholasticum expositivum argumentum pro Deipara continens quæ de instanti Conceptionis possunt et controverti stylo scholastico et positiva speculatione. Lugduni: 1660. Google Books.
  4. Idea de la prudencia, alivio contra la fortuna: sentencias de Seneca ponderadas: acuerdos de la paciencia: dictámenes para la resignación. Zaragoza: Juan de Ybar, 1661. Google Books: copy 1, copy 2.
  5. Actos y estatutos de la Santa Provincia di Aragón, de la Regular Observancia de San Francisco, nuevamente establecidos en el Capítulo celebrado en Zaragoza el 22 de abril de 1662. Zaragoza: Juan de Ybar, 1662. He was the Minister Provincial.
  6. Pro septuagesimo tertio capitulo generali ordinis minorum seraphici P. N. Francisci panegyrica conclamatio, placitis scholiata propugnatis … Petri de Aragonia … exambiens patrocinium. Romæ: typis Angeli Bernabò à Verme, 1664.
  7. Pro Christi Domini discipulis et Franciscanorum præcipuis festivitatibus Sanctorale apostolicum et seraphicum. Lugduni: sumpt. Philip. Borde, Laur. Arnaud, Petr. Borde et Guil. Barbier, 1664. Google Books: copy 1, copy 2
  8. Vida y muerte, virtudes y prodigios del venerable Padre fray Pedro Selleras religioso de la Orden de nuestro Serafico Padre S. Francisco, Hijo de la Santa Provincia de Aragón. Zaragoza: Juan de Ybar, 1664. Google Books
  9. Certamen scholasticum complectens natalitium Virginis, præsentationem, desponsationem, annuntiationem, visitationem et gravidationem. Barcinone: sumptibus Raphælis Figuaró, 1670.6
  10. Certamen scholasticum expositivum argumentum, pro Deipara; Virginei partus, nitidissimæ purificationis, venerandæ fugæ, et reditus Mariani; Actorum Deiparæ in Iesu juventute, dirissimi Martyrii juxta Crucem, Gaudii in Filii gloriis, et Magisterii Dei Genetricis in Ecclesiam, sacerrima Arcana continens. Lugduni: sumptibus Claudii Bourgeat sub signo Mercurii Galli, 1673. Google Books.
  11. Certamen scholasticum, expositivum argumentum pro Deipara: æterni Filii Matris fælicissimam Dormitionem, gloriosam valde Assumptionem, eius sacras Apparitiones … Virginei limpidissimi Sarcophagi asylum fidenter exambiens. Lugduni: sumptibus Claudii Bourgeat sub signo Mercurii Galli, 1675.
  12. Nuevo Via Crucis. Zaragoza: Juan de Ybar, 1678. 2nd ed. Madrid: 1708.
  13. Semicenturia sub titulum Consultationes in re morali: Post additis 45 propositionibus ab Alexandro VII damnatis et 65 ab Innocentio XI explicatis. Tolosæ: Apud Guillelmum Ludovicum Colomerium et Hieronymum Posüel, 1682. Google Books: copy 1, copy 2
  14. Pro divinæ voluntatis decretis et scientiæ conditionatæ stabilimine, non dissonæ ad mentem S. Bonaventuræ et Subtilis. Unpublished manuscript.

Secondary sources

It is his Mariology that has attracted the interest of contemporary theologians. Only Spanish-speaking authors have made him the principal object of an article,7 but this can be explained by the fact that it is quite difficult to find his works outside Spain. When non-Spanish authors do have the chance to examine them, they find them of considerable worth. Karlo Balić, in his survey of the witnesses of all ages to the Assumption, endorses Hurter’s judgment that Urrutigoyti is “an extremely learned man and an illustrious Mariologist,”8 and explains that he quotes this author’s texts at greater length than usual because of his splendid doctrine and the rarity of his works.9 Juniper Carol notes the exceptional contribution of Angelo Volpe and Urrutigoyti to the anti-debitist cause, together with three Jesuits and two Mercedarians. So thoroughly did these seven analyze the problem that their “many disciples in succeeding centuries have added little or nothing of importance to the remarkable insights of these brilliant theologians.”10

  1. Background on the family can be found in Francisco Fuentes Pascual, “El P. Baltasar Gracián y la familia Francés de Urrutigoyti y Lerma,” Príncipe de Viana 10 (1949): 53–64, https://dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/2252061.pdf. The best single source on our author’s life is Félix de Latassa y Ortín and Miguel Gómez Uriel, “Francés de Urrutigoiti y Lerma (Fray Tomás),” in Bibliotecas antigua y nueva de escritores aragoneses de Latassa aumentadas y refundidas en forma de diccionario bibliográfico-biográfico (Zaragoza: Imprenta de Calixto Ariño, 1884). Fuentes found the dates of baptism of six brothers and a sister (1587–1603), but not for our author and three other brothers, presumably born after 1603. Urrutigoyti indicates he was born at Saragossa in a passage of his sermons cited by Bernardo Aperribay, “María en la sagrada escritura según Tomás Francés de Urrutigoiti,” Estudios Marianos 24 (1963): 153–75 155.↩︎

  2. “Sea corona religiosa el muy reverendo Padre fray Tomás Francés, antorcha brillante de la Religión Seráfica, esparciendo rayos ya de su mucha doctrina en los púlpitos, de que dan testimonio dos Cuaresmas que predicó en este Hospital Real de Zaragoza, palenque de los mayores talentos, ya de su mucha Teología en tantos años de Cátedra, ya de su erudición en sus impresos libros, ya de su prudencia en los cargos y Prelacías que ha obtenido y Secretario que fue de dos Generales de su Orden, doblada prueba de sus muchos méritos.” Cit. in Fuentes Pascual, “El P. Baltasar Gracián” 58. The curious thing about this statement is that it was published in 1657, and the only book we know Urrutigoyti published before that date was Contra la peste del vicio, for which he only wrote the preface (see the list of works below). Perhaps Gracián had seen books in manuscript form.↩︎

  3. The calificador was the official of a tribunal whose task it was to judge whether or not the writings or statements of the accused constituted heresy. Cf. Henry Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision, 4th ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014) 234. While the Spanish Inquisition is not the sort of institution we would want around today, neither is it accurately depicted by the widespread view of it inherited from the anti-Catholic propaganda of the past. The work cited contributed to correcting that view at a scholarly level, but this revision has yet to filter down to the popular level.↩︎

  4. Cf. Pedro de Alcántara, “La Redención de María Según El P. Tomás Francés de Urrutigoyta,” Verdad y Vida 9 (1951): 53–54.↩︎

  5. I have managed to locate all of these except for nos. 1, 5, 12, and 14, which are reported by Latassa y Ortín and Gómez Uriel, “Francés de Urrutigoiti y Lerma (Fray Tomás)” 1:532.↩︎

  6. The title page gives the year 1669, but this is apparently an error. At least one copy has the handwritten correction “1670,” and all the lists of Urrutigoyti’s works give this date.↩︎

  7. Cf. Pedro de Alcántara, “La Redención de María,” 201–8; José Pijoan, “La Inmaculada Concepción en Francisco Guerra y Tomás Francés Urrutigoyti,” in Virgo Immaculata, vol. VII/2 (Romae: Academia Mariana Internationalis, 1957), 182–208; Aperribay, “María en la sagrada escritura.”↩︎

  8. Hugo Hurter, Nomenclator Literarius Theologiae Catholicae: Theologos Exhibens Aetate, Natione, Disciplinis Distinctos, 3rd ed., 5 vols. (Oeniponte: Libraria Academica Wagneriana, 1903–1913) 4:374: “vir apprime doctus et clarus theologus marianus.” The first half of this description comes from Juan de San Antonio, Bibliotheca universa franciscana, sive Alumnorum trium ordinum S. P. N. Francisci qui, ab ordine seraphico condito usque ad praesentem diem, latina sive alia quavis lingua scripto aliquid consignarunt encyclopaedia, 3 vols. (Matriti: ex typogr. Causae V. Matris de Agreda, 1732–1733) 3:119.↩︎

  9. Karlo Balic, Testimonia de Assumptione Beatae Virginis Mariae ex omnibus saeculis, vol. 2 (Romae: Academia Mariana, 1950), 2:220–221.↩︎

  10. Juniper Benjamin Carol, A History of the Controversy over the "Debitum Peccati" (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute Publications, 1978) 230. Not surprisingly, our author’s arguments were less appreciated by the debitist Pedro de Alcántara, “La Redención de María” 56,76–77↩︎