The Jesuit Roots of Spanish Naval Education: Juan José Navarro's Translation of Paul Hoste for the Academia de Guardias Marinas

Abstract

From its origins in 1540 to its final expulsion in 1767, the far-flung Jesuit network of schools and scholars influenced the development of scientific and mathematical pedagogy in the Spanish Empire. The most important of these schools was the Colegio Imperial of Madrid where young noblemen and members of the Spanish court learned mathematics. Therefore, when Juan José Navarro, an early eighteenth-century Spanish naval officer and reformer, began to teach at the newly founded Academia de Guardias Marinas, he translated French Jesuit Paul Hoste's L'Art des armeés navales into a Spanish manuscript to serve as the basis of a curriculum on contemporary naval tactics. Navarro's efforts highlight the continuity between the Jesuit science and mathematics of the seventeenth century and the emerging scientific institutions of the Spanish Enlightenment.