12. The Jesuits and the exact sciences in Argentina*

Eduardo L. Ortiz

The Order of Jesus had a worldwide influence on the circulation of knowledge on the exact sciences and astronomy; in the late 1600s their scientific activities reached some territories in South America. This chapter discusses, more particularly, the Jesuits’ early role in the transmission of some aspects of these sciences to Argentina. It first discusses the work of the Jesuit astronomer Buenaventura Suárez Garay (1679–1750), whose activities required the construction of delicate optical instruments, persistent and precise observations and complex calculations leading to the compilation of detailed astronomical tables. In the 1740s and 1750s the results of Suárez’s observations and his privileged geographical location managed to attract the attention of astronomers in leading European observatories. The chapter also shows how, from the early 17th century, the influence of the Jesuits was also felt in the world of advanced education, particularly through the establishment of a Collegium Maximum in Córdoba, where the transmission of the exact sciences was enhanced by the presence of qualified teachers and by a moderate use of European textbooks.

After the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767 a group of Spanish officers trusted with the construction of the demarcation line between the colonial territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires in America arrived in Buenos Aires with modern instruments and books, thereby helping to bridge the gap in the exact sciences left by the Jesuits. Their extended visit helped to transmit confidence in the use of modern, delicate measuring instruments to a small group of local enthusiasts. In addition, by the end of the century the university at Córdoba, run now by the Franciscan order, acquired an extensive collection of apparatus and demonstration equipment which aided a more effective teaching of physics. In the late 1830s, after the Jesuits were allowed to return to Argentina, they concentrated their energies on education, historically a main focus of their interests. After some earlier efforts, in 1870 a Jesuit school, the Colegio del Salvador, was established in Buenos Aires; it continued the work of an earlier Jesuit school founded in that city before expulsion, the Colegio de San Ignacio.

A significant portion of this chapter is devoted to the role played by the Jesuits in cosmic physics. By the end of the 19th century, following the encyclical Aeterni Patris, the Colegio del Salvador made efforts to raise its standard of teaching in the fields of modern science. To achieve this goal, it imported from Spain a Jesuit teacher, José Ubach, who had been trained in science at the new cosmic-physics Observatorio del Ebro (Observatori de l’Ebre), which had recently been created by the order in Catalonia. Besides teaching at the Colegio del Salvador, Ubach recognised the importance of the public understanding of science and contributed popular lectures on contemporary topics. As early as the start of the 1920s some former students of El Salvador began to be recognised as leading young Argentine scientists.

By the mid 1930s Argentina attempted to replicate the Observatorio del Ebro in Spain in creating a national institute for astronomy near Buenos Aires, the Observatorio de Física Cósmica de San Miguel. To lead this new institution the Argentine government invited a Jesuit, Ignacio Puig, who until then had been vice-director of the Observatorio del Ebro, thereby creating a link between the two institutions through the Jesuit Order. However, in the 1940s the appeal of cosmic physics began to fade as advances in nuclear physics gradually rendered its programme outdated. The order seems to have felt that these institutions had already completed their useful life. After some twenty years of gradual decline, the San Miguel observatory was finally transferred to a wider national institution. Some years later the formidable Observatorio del Ebro was itself incorporated into a larger educational institution, the new Jesuit Universitat Ramon Llull, also in Catalonia. Clearly, having incorporated and consolidated science education in its leading schools, the order could attend to new challenges and move on to other type of tasks.

The Jesuits and the introduction of the exact sciences in Argentina

Over an extended period, and in a series of studies, the Jesuit historian Guillermo Furlong (1889–1974) has discussed the role which members of the Jesuit Order played in the transfer of science to Argentina.¹ Despite obvious limitations, these pioneering works, informed by documents from archives in Argentina and abroad, contain valuable references and insights into the impact of Jesuit scholars on the intellectual history of Argentina, particularly in the late colonial period and on the sciences. Furlong has rightly stressed the internationalism of the contingent sent by the Jesuits to teach the exact sciences in the southern territories of America, which included Italian and German scholars as well as Spanish and Portuguese.² This is particularly noteworthy for these sciences: as Baldini has shown, in the 17th and 18th centuries the teaching of mathematics and its applications was not as advanced in Jesuit schools in Spain or Portugal as it was then in Italy and the German lands.³ Therefore, the presence in America of scholars from these last two regions has considerable significance.

Soon after their arrival in America some of these priests began to collect local scientific information and to establish channels of communication with leading Jesuit and other scientists in Europe. Others used their expertise in applied mathematics to help in topographical operations, large and small, and in the design and construction of churches, other buildings, ships and large industrial plants such as sugar-cane mills. A few of them attempted to investigate the cosmos from their new, southern location. Meanwhile, on the educational front the Jesuits opened a school in Tucumán, in central Argentina, in 1604 and a university college, a Collegium Maximum, in Córdoba a decade later, around 1613.⁴ Within four years a school and a college had been opened in Buenos Aires.⁵ All these establishments would remain under Jesuit guidance until their expulsion in 1767. Through teaching at some of these establishments, the Jesuits facilitated the emergence of local students with an interest in science. Clearly, in a new world with a great diversity of unseen animals and plants, the natural sciences were, perhaps, the main attraction for these few scholars; their efforts in these fields have been researched by several authors, including Furlong himself.⁶

Quantitative science: Suárez and a culture of instruments and calculation

In much smaller numbers, studies in the exact sciences also began to emerge, at least from the late 1600s to early 1700s. They have a special interest today because of their association with the emergence of a quantitative culture which relied heavily on the use of scientific instruments rather the exclusive use of the syllogism and reason to uncover scientific truths, as taught by Aristotle in Physica.⁷ In addition, the period which extends beyond the Jesuit expulsion and into the first years of Argentina’s independence is a particularly interesting one in this respect, as it still falls under the intellectual influence of the last generation of scholars trained by the Jesuits, or by other orders.⁸

Among the Jesuits, at the turn of the 17th century into the 18th century, Buenaventura Suárez Garay (1679–1750)⁹ is a figure who has attracted considerable attention. He was a young Jesuit, born in what is today Argentina, who became interested in astronomy and the exact sciences. Later he settled in the north of the Argentine/Paraguayan Mesopotamia region and there undertook detailed astronomical observations and calculations. Later he used his data to produce astronomical tables which still attract the attention of historians and astronomers. Suárez was born in Santa Fe, on the banks of the Paraná river, and was educated at the Jesuits’ Collegium Maximum in Córdoba, Argentina. In 1695 he entered the order and in 1706 was sent to work in the Guaraní missions of San Cosme and San Damián, which had been founded by the Jesuits around 1632.

For over 33 years Suárez recorded regular astronomical observations, but a striking fact about him is that in addition he actually made the instruments he used for his observations. This last, interesting fact was first communicated by Suárez himself in the introduction to his book Lunario, to be discussed briefly below. Since at that time it was extremely difficult to send delicate instruments from Europe to the depths of South America, it is not surprising that a qualified, entrepreneurial scientist would decide that the only practical solution was to build them himself. The case of astronomers making their own instruments is, of course, not unique. What is perhaps more extraordinary is that Suárez succeeded in doing so in these remote latitudes.

There was, however, some experience on which Suárez could, and surely did, rely. Due to isolation the missions’ leaders generally had to adapt to shortages of manufactured goods from Europe by developing their own workshops and training some of the most gifted local people to work with wood and metals. Foundries established in the missions produced bells and some agricultural tools; later they were also capable of producing larger objects such as cannons and smaller ones such as nuts. In some Jesuit missions delicate pieces, such as sundials, clocks (including chiming clocks), organ tubes, violins and several other musical instruments, were also manufactured.

In the case of telescopes, as with other scientific equipment which Suárez built in the missions, there was a need for both a sturdy mount and delicate mechanical adjustment pieces, as well as lenses. The first two were not essentially different from some pieces mentioned above. As for the lenses, it is believed that Suárez and others before him had learned to make them using a locally abundant rock crystal, traditionally used by the Guaraní to create delicate artistic objects. The quality of the lenses available to Suárez may have been far from perfect; however, it must be remembered that the lenses used by Galileo (1564–1642) in his first telescope were far from perfect either: they contained small bubbles and had some problems with their transparency.

Suárez built more than one telescope; in Lunario he indicates that his various instruments had focal distances of between 2.20m and 6.60m. In addition, he built astronomic clocks and a few other delicate scientific instruments. In any case, Suárez’s achievements suggest that they were based on collaboration with local residents of the mission. With the instruments which Suárez and his collaborators may have built, he made careful, regular observations of solar and lunar eclipses, as well as of the occultation and emergence of Jupiter’s satellites. The data he collected allowed him to fix the coordinates of his Jesuit mission, an achievement of some interest. In addition to his technical and observational achievements, Suárez tried to circulate the results of his regular observations among leading world experts. The latter may have been keen to acquire them, in view of the exceptional geographical position of the observations. Through a complex circuit of connections: commercial, naval and also scientific, which extended from the heart of the Jesuit missions to England, passing through intermediary scientists, some of the data Suárez collected reached London and was reported in the Transactions of the Royal Society in the late 1740s and early 1750s (fig. 12.1).¹⁰

Figure 12.1. Astronomical observations by Buenaventura Suárez in Paraguay. (Source: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London, 46 (1750): 8).

Suárez was also the author of a Lunario de un siglo, which he first published some time before 1744, possibly in 1738–39;¹¹ it has since been reprinted several times and in different countries.¹² Essentially, a Lunario is a collection of ephemerides, or tables of astronomical data giving, at specific times, the position of one or several celestial bodies in the sky.¹³ Suárez’s tables were compiled on the basis of his own personal observations and on calculations he made based on this data. That information helped him to date special religious festivities, such as Easter, lunar phases and other celestial events, as well as solar and lunar eclipses visible from ‘the Missions of the Company of Jesus in the Province of Paraguay adjusted to the local times and meridian passing through the town of San Cosme and San Damián’. He gave times for the beginning, maximum and end of some of these astronomical events, a task which required fairly complex calculations.

Suárez’s book, of a little over two hundred pages, covers a long period of time: from January 1740 to December 1841. In addition, it had an appendix in which instructions were given on how to extend these tables up to 1903 (fig. 12.2). Furlong was one of the first historians to point to the need for a detailed scientific analysis of Suárez’s work. In an attempt to give a more solid foundation to the article he published in 1919,¹⁴ he requested the opinion of the Jesuit astronomer José Ubach, then a science teacher at the Colegio del Salvador, Buenos Aires, on the scientific value of Suárez’s work. After discussing that work Ubach indicated that parts of it ‘require of its author a deep, and then very unusual knowledge of Astronomy’.¹⁵

Suárez’s work has continued to attract the attention of historians of science, such as Asúa,¹⁶ and also of astronomers, such as Tiganelli,¹⁷ Galindo and Rodríguez-Mesa.¹⁸ Tiganelli discusses Lunario in some detail, while Galindo and Rodríguez-Mesa compared Suárez’s original data with a computer database containing a large amount of observed and calculated international astronomical information. Through these comparisons the last two authors were able to offer, for the first time, an objective evaluation of the scientific relevance of Suárez’s observations and to confirm the quality of the astronomical data he generated through his observations and calculations at the Jesuit missions.

Figure 12.2. Cover page of Buenaventura Suárez’s Lunario, Barcelona edition of 1752 (Wikimedia Commons).

The Jesuit expulsion and its impact on science in the territories which became known as Argentina

The expulsion of the Jesuits had an impact on the quality of the teaching offered at the University of Córdoba and, without doubt, on the status of science there, at least in the short term. Contemporary textbooks suitable for the teaching of mathematics and physics are preserved in the University of Córdoba library; however, it is not clear whether or not they were actually used by the Jesuits in their lessons. Moreover, if compared with libraries in Jesuit teaching institutions in Europe, their numbers seem to be rather slim for that purpose.¹⁹

Since in colonial times the cost of paper was high and there were no adequate printing facilities in Córdoba for the production of books on topics related to the exact sciences, a number of these books are manuscripts copies, possibly student lecture notes. These textbooks and manuscripts books are now found mainly in libraries and archives in Córdoba and Buenos Aires. Many of those in Buenos Aires were originally in Córdoba’s library, but were moved when a national library was created in the capital in 1812; since 1999 many have been returned to Córdoba. The Jesuit books available in Córdoba are listed in the Colección Jesuítica de la Biblioteca Mayor de la Universidad Nacional de Córdoba.²⁰ In addition, there is currently a project which attempts to unify the catalogues of Argentine colonial bibliography.²¹

A few specialised texts, such as Elías del Carmen Pereira’s (1760–1825) Tractatus de Physica Generalis, published in 1784²² and preserved in the library of the Universidad Nacional de La Plata, were translated and reprinted over a century ago.²³ R. Loyarte has discussed this work, arguing that in it Father Elías did not accept the ideas developed by Galileo or by Newton in his 1687 treatise Principia. ²⁴ A copy of Elias del Carmen Pereira’s Physica particularis has also recently been identified in the private library of the owner of a large country house in the province of Salta in northern Argentina.²⁵ Other extant contemporaneous texts are listed in the recently published dissertation by M. Sánchez Herrador.²⁶ References to specific leading scientists such as Newton in Jesuit (or Franciscan) texts printed in South America have been considered by a number of scholars.²⁷ A technical analysis of the physics and mathematics contents of surviving texts in Córdoba, comparing their ideas with those found in contemporaneous European texts on the same subjects, Jesuit or non-Jesuit, is still an open and interesting field of research.

Precise measurements: between expulsion and Independence

It is possible to detect some interesting changes in the scientific scene in Argentina in the years between the Jesuit expulsion and independence. These changes were initially connected to the work of the joint demarcation commission which, as previously mentioned, was in charge of drawing the meridian line which separated Spanish and Portuguese colonial possessions in America.²⁸ This complex and extensive joint geodesic operation brought to America a number of interesting Portuguese and Spanish scientists, mostly associated with the navy; they contributed to keeping alive an emergent scientific tradition there. These naval experts carried with them, to Buenos Aires and to other large towns, first-hand experience of a number of scientific topics connected with their cartographic task, as well as modern books and a valuable collection of reasonably modern scientific instruments.²⁹ Once their work was finished, the Spanish colonial authorities in Buenos Aires requested that both the books and instruments be left in the city, which was agreed.

An extended stay by some former commission members in Buenos Aires and the availability of suitable instruments there facilitated the transfer of knowledge in the use of this apparatus to some local residents. In time this knowledge facilitated the organisation of local schools, usually called academies, where topics such as basic mathematics and topography, navigation, drawing, map-making and so forth could be learned, giving some continuity to earlier Jesuit efforts.³⁰ These circumstances enlarged the small circle of individuals familiar with more modern textbooks and comfortable with the use of some delicate scientific instruments. In Buenos Aires precision-measuring became a far more concrete subject than ever before.

In addition to this important stimulus there is evidence of a new social interest in scientific experimentation among some educated local people. This assumption is supported by the fact that Martín de Altolaguirre (1708–83?), a wealthy, high-ranking crown functionary, born in Spain and residing in Buenos Aires, purchased a large collection of physical instruments – a Physics Cabinet – in Spain and had it sent to his residence in Buenos Aires.³¹ His son, Martín José de Altolaguirre (1736–1813?) was born in Buenos Aires and educated by the Jesuits at the San Ignacio College in his native city. Like his father, he was interested in the sciences, but not in physics. His subject was the natural sciences and he has been credited with the acclimatisation of several foreign crops in Argentina. At some stage after his father died he decided to offer the collection of instruments to the University of Córdoba.

Through the positive attitude of some of the current authorities, particularly Father Pedro José de Sullivan, a Franciscan, then dean of the college in Córdoba, the valuable Altolaguirre collection of demonstration instruments was acquired by the university, though not without the opposition of some humanities’ teachers. Sullivan believed that exposing students to real experiments, using the pieces in Altolaguirre’s collection rather than verbal descriptions, would enhance the teaching of physics in Córdoba.

This decision, and the cost of the collection, suggest there was, then, also in Córdoba a more favourable attitude towards teaching physics using demonstration instruments than ever before.³² From a copy available in Córdoba, the Franciscan Monseñor Zenón Bustos y Ferreyra (1850–1925) produced a partial list of these instruments, which he published in Córdoba. Later that list was completed by Furlong using an inventory recovered by the historian Jorge Escalada Iriondo from the Archivo General de los Tribunales.³³ It is interesting to note that one of the most expensive items in Altolaguirre’s collection was a vacuum pump, a machine which had started an intense debate between the Jesuits and the German physicist Otto von Guericke (1602– 1686).³⁴

The slow return of Jesuit science teachers to Argentina and the emergence of the Colegio del Salvador

Let us return to the scene of science, now in independent Argentina, and to the place of the Jesuits in it. In the third decade of the 19th century, soon after being given facultades extraordinarias to run the government of Argentina, Juan Manuel de Rosas (1793–1877) tried to attract Spanish members of religious orders to take care of local education. He wished to replace institutions created by previous, more liberal governments, such as the defunct Colegio de Ciencias Morales of 1823, with a new college more in tune with his own views on education and politics.

On Rosas’ invitation, Jesuits arrived in Buenos Aires in 1837 and established there a school that later became known as Colegio Republicano Federal, a name fit for the prevailing ideology of the government. By 1840 students began to graduate from the new school and some textbooks began to be printed locally. However, Rosas’ interference with the Jesuits soon began to cause friction,³⁵ which resulted in deep changes in the structure of the school and the loss of teachers. Finally, in 1843 Rosas expelled the few remaining Jesuits from Argentina. Rosas was deposed in 1853, but the return of a substantial school, organised according to Jesuit structures, took some years. This finally happened in 1868 with the establishment of Colegio del Salvador (El Salvador in what follows) in Buenos Aires.³⁶ This school can be regarded as a distant relative of the old Jesuit school of 1617, the Colegio de Loreto. The new Jesuit school focused on the education of a small but influential section of the population. In fact, some of El Salvador’s graduates would later play a significant role in the political and cultural life of the country, as well as in the law or the professions.

By the end of the 19th century the authorities of El Salvador, which then had a population of some 550 students, understood clearly the need to offer an up-to-date scientific education, which at that time was seen as an indispensable sign of modernity. Its authorities asked the Spanish Jesuits to help them to find a good science teacher and the name of José Ubach Medir (1871–1935) (mentioned above in connection with a 1919 evaluation of Buenaventura Suárez’s work), a promising young man who had not yet been ordained a priest, was suggested.

Ubach was born in Barcelona to a religious Catalan family, but one not exclusively linked to the Jesuit Order: his younger brother, Buenaventura, reached a high rank in the Benedictine Order. He studied at the local Jesuit secondary school and at the age of 17 decided to join the order. After finishing his training, he was educated further at science centres run by the Spanish Jesuits in Oña and Tortosa, where chemistry was one of its key scientific subjects.³⁷ Ubach arrived in Buenos Aires in 1897 and soon started teaching sciences at El Salvador: chemistry, cosmography, mathematics and natural sciences, ostensibly with a modern approach.

Cosmic physics and the Jesuits

Cosmic physics: a new, Humboldtian, chapter in science

By the second half of the 19th century there were significant changes on the world scientific scene which did not pass unnoticed by Spanish Jesuits, who were now back from banishment. These included the emergence of a new chapter in the physical sciences: cosmic physics. In the field of astronomy the Italian Jesuit astronomer Angelo Secchi (1818–78), director of the Collegio Romano’s observatory in Rome, discovered, through painstaking detailed observations, that in addition to sunspots, already observed by Galileo and by the Jesuit astronomer Christoph Scheiner (1573–1650) in the early 1600s, the sun is crossed by large jets of gas, some up to 500 kms wide, which move irregularly over its surface. In addition, during the same period and following new perspectives brought about by the formulation of new energy-conservation principles in the physical sciences, Lord Kelvin (1824–1907) showed that the energy emanating from the sun cannot be eternal, estimating its life to be between 30 and 300 million years.³⁸

Scientists began to look in new directions and as some concentrated on the intense and then inexplicable activity which takes place on the sun’s surface, others wondered whether those extraordinary exchanges of energy might not have a direct impact on earth. The answer came on the night of 1 to 2 September 1859, when a great flare, of the type identified by Father Secchi before, was visible as a glow near a cluster of sunspots. At the same time telegraphic communications suffered a monumental disruption all over the planet and the Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights, became visible as far south as the equator. This showed quite definitely that changes in the sun’s activity influence earth, perhaps in many more ways than we had ever imagined. Consequently, some experts suggested that if the sun’s activity is capable of affecting the electrical state of the earth’s atmosphere, that is, telegraphic communications and the Aurora Borealis, it may also have some effect on animals and plants and, perhaps, also on storms and other unpredictable manifestations of the sun’s energy on earth, maybe even on earthquakes. If this were the case, by following the sun’s activity closely it might be possible to forecast, or even prevent, some natural disasters.

Towards the end of the 19th century a worldwide programme of simultaneously registering the evolution of the sun’s spots and local changes in terrestrial magnetism, atmospheric electricity, seismology, meteorology and atmospheric storms began to be considered at a high international level. These studies looked to be a promising new chapter in physics and it was internationally agreed to call this discipline, or rather inter-discipline, cosmic physics. It clearly had its roots in Alexander von Humboldt’s (1769–1859) ideas, expressed in his influential book Kosmos.³⁹ Very distinguished scientists, including the future Nobel laureate Svante Arrhenius (1859–1927), were at the forefront of this new chapter in science, writing textbooks to teach cosmic physics at leading European universities.⁴⁰

The methodology used in these large-scale, multi-country observations was, basically, the compilation of a long series of observations of one particular phenomenon, such as earth tremors, with the hope that some pattern of regularities or periodicities would emerge from them. Possibly, they could be correlated to the activity of sunspots or, perhaps, to some other, extra-terrestrial and still undiscovered cosmic phenomena. If such correlations could be established, it was thought they could bring enormous benefits to agriculture, navigation, telegraphic communications and several other areas of human activity. These correlations would not only expand the arc of science, but also save lives, property and ships at sea and help to prevent countless catastrophes. They would help the flow of life, of commerce and of communications.

The Jesuits join research into cosmic physics

However, cosmic physics could only function through worldwide simultaneous observations of a given phenomenon. This was a context in which the Jesuits had an advantage: their unique, international network of missions, covering an area far more extensive than any contemporary empire, could be put to good use for worldwide cosmic-physics observations. By the end of the 19th century the Jesuits owned 30 of the world’s existing 130 astronomical observatories, almost one quarter. Quite conveniently for them, and also for science, in 1879 Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Aeterni Patris opened the door for Catholic institutions to embrace modern science more openly. In that encyclical the pope stated that ‘many illustrious professors of the physical sciences openly testify that between certain and accepted conclusions of modern physics and the philosophic principles of the [Catholic Church] schools there is no conflict worthy of the name’.⁴¹ Thus, Jesuits could now officially enter new areas of the contemporary science debate and do so with confidence.

Most Jesuit observatories were attached to schools and, as explained above, had reasonably well educated teachers. However, if necessary, teachers could easily be re-trained to conduct whatever measurements in cosmic physics might be required. In addition, the Jesuits circulated their teachers over the extensive area of the planet: as they moved from one country to another they helped to moderate national differences and established an international, distinctive, Jesuit approach of accuracy and reliability in their measurements. Some individual figures within the order, such as the aforementioned Father Secchi and by then also a few others, enjoyed a high international reputation and could be trusted to conduct, efficiently, high-level exchanges with scientists from any country and thereby to make such cooperation possible.

It is interesting to note that the Jesuits added some local flavour to each of their observatories engaged in cosmic physics data collection.⁴² In regions affected by earthquakes, such as Granada or Malaga, their observatories gave preference to studies on the correlation between sunspots and seismic activity. In coastal areas, such as La Habana, Manila, Shanghai, Madagascar, or Cleveland, where large tides, hurricanes, heavy storms or typhoons were a frequent hazard, they concentrated on observations aimed at developing some sort of weather-forecasting scheme. In observatories operating in physically quiet areas, such as Ebro or Kalocsa, the Jesuits concentrated on the impact of solar activity on delicate electrical and magnetic phenomena, relevant, for example, to telegraphic communications. This regionalism, or local utility, found in Jesuit observatories of the time was also related to the need to attract, selectively, scientific patronage. Finding new sources of financial support was a matter of perpetual concern to officers of the order; at some stage they even tried to absorb some of the new tactics developed in New York by the Rockefeller Foundation administrators in order to attract patronage.

At the same time, the Jesuits’ engagement with scientific work encouraged the emergence, inside the order, of far better trained science teachers, some of them with first-hand experience in the complexities of experimental science. In time, these teachers contributed to giving Jesuit schools across the world as high a reputation for science teaching as they already had for classical studies. No doubt these better-trained teachers made a contribution to the emergence in the early 1900s of a new generation of top Catholic scientists with a wider, deeper knowledge than ever before and also with more open attitudes.

Cosmic physics in Spain

Spanish Jesuits possibly entered cosmic physics through the advice of the leading Spanish astronomer José Joaquín Landerer y Climent (1841–1922).⁴³ He was close to the order and, having received scientific training in France, was well aware of the new international scientific movement, of which he was also a distinguished member. In addition, he was a generous contributor to the order’s work, possibly also to its new developments in astronomy.

At the time the Jesuits were in the process of opening a group of new observatories in Spain, so they decided to devote one of them specifically to cosmic physics. This was the Observatorio del Ebro (Observatori de l’Ebre), built near Roquetes, Tarragona, in Catalonia, some 120 miles south of Barcelona and close to the Mediterranean. The specific fields of cosmic physics to be studied at this observatory would be solar radiation, terrestrial magnetism, atmospheric and underground electrical currents and their possible connection to changes in solar spots or in protuberances.

In 1903, after teaching at El Salvador for nearly seven years, Ubach was sent back to Spain to assist in the installation of the new cosmic-physics Observatorio del Ebro. Once in Spain he finished his studies and became a Jesuit priest. Following that, Ubach was sent abroad for further training, staying at Jesuit observatories in Holland, Belgium and France. After this training he was assigned to a special group doing preparatory work for the installation of the new Observatorio del Ebro. The Observatory was officially opened in 1905, relying on the help of well-known Dutch and German Jesuit astronomers who moved there temporarily and assisted in the training of the new personnel.⁴⁴ Ubach was one of these young Jesuits and later he became the leader of one of the main sections of the new observatory: the Magnetic Laboratory.⁴⁵

The Colegio del Salvador, Buenos Aires, in the early 20th century

However, following a new request from El Salvador, Ubach returned to Buenos Aires in 1911; this began a long stay which would last until his official retirement in 1932 and death three years later. There are reasons to believe that Ricardo Cirera Salse, S.J. (1864–1932), the first director of the Observatorio del Ebro, was not happy with the idea of sending Ubach back to Argentina when so much work had to be done at his new observatory. Ubach’s departure deprived that young institution of one of its few foreign-trained astronomers. However, Ubach’s new destination answered the need of the Society of Jesus to strengthen the position of science teaching in one of the most prestigious schools the Society then had in Latin America.

In addition to teaching, cultural life at El Salvador was also active. In 1878, barely ten years after it opened its doors, a society of former students called the Academia Literaria del Plata was created. In addition to regular lectures and meetings, the Academia Literaria allowed El Salvador to continue to be relevant to the intellectual life of its former students and to contribute to building a new generation of Jesuit-trained Catholic intellectuals in Argentina; later, they had an impact on their country’s cultural and political life. In 1911 the Academia Literaria began publishing a journal called Estudios. New topics of science, as well as contemporary scientific controversies such as Darwinism, were reflected in the pages of this journal. Sadly, some racist expressions found their way into its pages. Furlong’s 1919 paper on the astronomical works of Buenaventura Suárez, mentioned earlier, which contained Ubach’s technical remarks on Suárez’s work, was originally published in the journal Estudios.

In the first years of his second stay in Argentina Ubach kept in close contact with the Observatorio del Ebro, which enhanced his position in South America by making him its ‘Official Delegate in the River Plate’.⁴⁶ As such, Ubach’s remit was to complement, from South America, the Observatorio del Ebro’s studies on solar perturbations. There he would record the impact of solar-related electrical and magnetic phenomena, on which he had expertise. Later, the official designation conferred on him by the Observatorio del Ebro became useful: it allowed him to strengthen his contacts with official Argentine astronomical and cartographic centres. The army’s national geographical institute,⁴⁷ the main Argentine cartographic institution, shared with Ubach their own observations and results, while the naval ministry allowed him free use of its potent radio transmitters to send and receive time signals accurately.

As part of his research project he discussed the terrestrial impact of the partial solar eclipses of 1916 and 1918, for which he calculated the visibility zone. In addition to the astronomical installations at El Salvador, Ubach had access to the better astronomical instruments available at the Metropolitan Seminary in Villa Devoto, Buenos Aires. The mathematical analysis of his measurements required the solution of a fairly large ill-conditioned system of algebraic equations, which he attempted. Ubach also studied the possible effects of the solar eclipses on magnetism and for that attracted the collaboration of a group of local, as well as Chilean, observers. From his office in El Salvador he centralised all data on the specific impact of the eclipses on humidity, pressure and temperature collected by observers from outside Buenos Aires. He continued with observations of the impact of solar eclipses until the end of the 1920s. Moreover, Ubach did not neglect the importance of the public understanding of science, from time to time offering series of weekly public lectures in which he explained, in simple terms, why astrophysicists were interested in solar spots and other matters to do with cosmic physics.

The Jesuits, El Salvador and the debate on relativity theory in Argentina

In 1919, just after the end of the First World War, attempts were made to measure an astronomical consequence of Einstein’s theory of relativity: the possibility that the light rays from stars might be bent by the attraction of the mass of the sun. This was an effect which could be detected during an eclipse. Once the astronomical expeditions sent to measure such hypothetical deviation published their results, astronomers from different countries made their views public. Ubach read his own conclusions at a two-day meeting held on 20 and 27 September 1920 in El Salvador’s main lecture theatre. This was just a month after the celebrated poet and science enthusiast Leopoldo Lugones (1874–1938) had lectured on the same subject at the faculty of science of Buenos Aires University, which was then the local epicentre of relativism.

Ubach’s views are, perhaps, the most interesting evaluation of that theory formulated in Argentina from the specific angle of the Catholic Church.⁴⁸ He discussed absolute and relative motion, invariance and the consequences of Lorentz’s relativistic ideas and then considered the modifications introduced by Einstein’s work on Newton’s classical mechanics. He concluded his exposition with a reference to Einstein’s generalised theory of relativity, its impact on the conceptions of classical mechanics and the possibility of verifying its consequences through astronomical observations. He indicated that the proof provided by the eclipse was not entirely conclusive, which was a not-uncommon point of view at the time. However, it did not escape him that Einstein’s ideas had changed, deeply, our conceptions of time and space and ‘contain novelties never suspected’, leading to ‘very reasonable and very true and acceptable conclusions’. He then reassured his audience, stating he believed that the same conclusions would, someday, be reached through the classical theories of physics and expected that ‘new experiments may be able to bring new results’ which might make the radical changes proposed by the new relativity theory unnecessary.⁴⁹ Two years later Ubach opened the 1922 series of popular-science lectures at El Salvador with another key scientific question: a discussion of Darwin’s theory of evolution, still a contentious matter.⁵⁰

He and his colleagues contributed to the creation of new environments of discussion at several different levels around El Salvador, initially through education, later with the help of the Academia Literaria and Estudios and, finally, through the Cursos de Cultura Católica,⁵¹ a society focused on a much wider public, which Ubach helped to develop. In time, the Cursos had an impact on the development of an influential group of young Catholics who became active in culture and national politics. However, the Jesuits were not alone in their efforts to have an impact on Argentina’s cultural world. They competed with other local groupings: some indifferent to religion, others with a long tradition of a liberal outlook. Nor were they alone in their efforts to promote regular visits by Spanish intellectuals to Argentina. Since soon after the centenary year of 1910, the most formidable string of celebrated Spanish intellectuals regularly visited Argentina and stayed there for extended periods; they were supported by the newly created, non-partisan but liberally oriented, Junta para Ampliación de Estudios e Investigaciones Científicas.

The latter was a new science research council set up in Madrid in 1907 through the efforts of Nobel Prize winner Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852– 1934). Within a few years of being established, the Junta launched the above-mentioned programme of intellectual and cultural rapprochement with Argentina in association with the Institución Cultural Española, which had the patronage of wealthy, and generally liberal, Spanish merchants residing in Buenos Aires.⁵² These visits benefitted the University of Buenos Aires and had a serious impact on Argentine culture. Later, after the end of the Spanish Civil War, these personal contacts eased the way for the integration of Spanish immigrant intellectuals and artists in Argentina, with very considerable benefit to its cultural life.

A new generation of scientists trained at El Salvador

Ramón G. Loyarte (1888–1944) is a paradigmatic example among the students educated at El Salvador in the early years of the 20th century who later moved to the sciences. After his studies at El Salvador he joined the physics institute of the new University of La Plata; there he studied under the German physicists Emil Bose (1874–1911) and Richard Gans (1880–1954) before himself being sent to Germany for further studies. In 1925, when Gans returned to Germany, Loyarte was chosen to succeed him as director of that modern laboratory, at the time the largest in Latin America. He was also the first physicist to receive the Argentine National Science Prize in 1925; in 1928 he became president of the University of La Plata. Loyarte was also interested in the history of physics: his views on Elías del Carmen Pereira’s Tractatus de Physica Generalis have been noted above. Loyarte combined his scientific activities with intense political activity as a member of the right-wing conservative party, which he represented in the national parliament. Later, in 1944, after a military coup d’état, he was designated Interventor⁵³ of the National Education Council. As such, he promoted the introduction of religious education, not just in Catholic establishments but also nationwide in state schools; until then the latter had been neutral on religious matters. His ideas on this matter encountered considerable opposition.

A Jesuit-supported observatory of cosmic physics for Argentina

By the mid 1930s El Salvador no longer had a sufficiently wide basis for the new science project the Jesuits were considering for Argentina, namely, the installation there of a cosmic-physics observatory in the image of the Observatorio del Ebro. At the time the new Spanish Republic was causing serious anxieties for the order, which was finally to be dissolved in early 1932. For some time astronomers at the Observatorio del Ebro evaluated the possibility of having to move personnel, and possibly also valuable instruments, to Argentina.

In parallel with the Spanish anxieties, the first half of the 1930s was also a complex period in the history of Argentine astronomy. Traditionally, since the national observatory had been founded by Benjamin Apthorp Gould (1824–96) in Córdoba in 1871, its director had always been a US citizen. The last in that chain of directors was the US-born astronomer Charles Dillon Perrine (1867–1951). In the early 1930s he was close to retirement and, despite clear achievements, faced some external opposition. Some locals complained, with some validity, of the absence of a training course in astronomy and a programme capable of generating local experts in that field of science. To resolve this, some suggested that the observatory should be absorbed by the University of Córdoba; others, for whatever reason, simply wished Perrine to go.

A collection of letters recovered from the Córdoba observatory’s archive a few months ago have been reproduced and reviewed by S. Paolantonio.⁵⁴ They indicate that in these critical circumstances Perrine contacted local dignitaries of the Catholic Church in Córdoba in late 1932, in particular Fermín E. Lafitte (1888–1959), an influential cleric who would become bishop of Córdoba two years later. Perrine expressed concern about current events in Spain and indicated that once he retired the position of director should be given to the Spanish Jesuit astronomer Lluís Rodés i Campderá (1881–1939), the current director of the Observatorio del Ebro. Rodés was known and appreciated in Argentina; he had visited Buenos Aires and other cities in 1927. His inaugural lecture in Buenos Aires, at El Salvador, attracted the presence of distinguished persons from the local world of science, politics and the army. Among them was the minister of war General Agustín P. Justo (1876–1943), a Buenos Aires University graduate in engineering who would soon be elected president of Argentina.

However, despite the delicate situation which confronted Rodés at his own institution in early 1930s, or maybe because of it, by 1932 Rodés indicated clearly that he did not wish to be involved in these discussions. The publication of Rodés’s personal diary in 2015⁵⁵ confirms, as generally believed, that he was not enthusiastic about the Spanish military uprising against the republic. It also describes how he managed to keep the Observatorio del Ebro working after the Company of Jesus was dissolved in 1932 and, after that, through the early years of the Spanish Civil War.⁵⁶

Soon after Perrine’s exchanges with Monsignor Lafitte, in mid 1933, the national government decided to create a National Council of Observatories (Consejo Nacional de Observatorios), whose duty it was to coordinate the activities of the different Argentine observatories. It designated the astronomer Monseñor Fortunato Devoto (1872–1941) as its director. The government had, in fact, created a new structure above the senior Córdoba National Observatory and kept it under Jesuit administration. In parallel with these developments a long arc of meridian began to be measured in Argentina in the mid 1930s. This interesting interaction between local scientists, the army and members of the Catholic Church is discussed by this author in an earlier publication.⁵⁷

Figure 12.3. Cosmic Physics Observatory, San Miguel. Source: Ibérica, 45 (25 January 1936).

Soon after being established, the Council of Observatories created a new Cosmic Physics Observatory (Observatorio de Física Cósmica). It offered the directorship to Rodés’s number two, the Jesuit astronomer Ignacio Puig (1887–1961), until then deputy director of the Observatorio del Ebro, who accepted the offer. With this choice the cosmic-physics link between Argentina and Spain was officially sealed and remained attached to the Order of Jesus. The new observatory was located in San Miguel, a town close to Buenos Aires, where the order had established, also in 1932, a top-level training college for priests, the Colegio Máximo de San Miguel; Pope Francis (1936–) is the Colegio Máximo’s best known former student.

We have already referred to the Jesuits’ concern with funding to support their scientific and other institutions. The order had already financed most of its scientific institutions through patronage; the new cosmic physics observatory at San Miguel was not going to be an exception. It was built and equipped using the combination of a national endowment, monies provided by a private individual (a former student at El Salvador) and the contribution of a large, local electricity-generating company in which Spanish capital was dominant.

Puig remained in charge of the San Miguel cosmic physics observatory until 1943, when he retired and returned to Spain. His main contribution was in the field of the public understanding of cosmic physics and of astronomy in general. He was the author of several publications on topics related to cosmic physics and also of a useful treatise on astronomy⁵⁸ and an introductory book on cosmic physics.⁵⁹ The latter was included in a prestigious science collection directed by mathematician and historian of science Julio Rey Pastor (1888– 1962) in Buenos Aires. In addition, he regularly contributed notes on scientific subjects to Catholic newspapers, particularly to El Pueblo.⁶⁰

Cosmic physics begins to lose its appeal

The fact is that by the late 1920s, even before the observatory at San Miguel was established, the original programme of cosmic physics was becoming outdated in Europe. Studies on the behaviour of matter at a more fundamental level and their implications for astronomy were replacing some of the ideas heralded by cosmic-physics enthusiasts. However, Puig should be credited with an attempt to shift the focus of his institute towards the study of cosmic rays, energy radiation coming from outside the solar system. He made attempts to use high-altitude balloons to register this radiation in the upper layers of the atmosphere, but encountered some difficulties, possibly aggravated by the restrictions on equipment imposed by the Second World War.

His successor, the Jesuit astronomer Juan Antonio Bussolini (1905–66), attempted to modernise the observatory, expanding its circle of interests. Trusted by President General Juan D. Perón (1895–1974), he acted as a member of a committee of advisors who suggested to the president that the current efforts by the Austrian physicist Roland Richter (1909–91) to generate energy through nuclear fusion, then being attempted at a specially built plant in Bariloche, lacked a solid theoretical foundation and should be discontinued.⁶¹ In 1966 a military coup d’état, the fourth in the 20th century, deposed the elected national government of the time. The San Miguel observatory was reorganised yet again and a new Jesuit director was appointed. He acted under the tutelage of the Argentine air force, but soon, as Father Udias has indicated, ‘the observatory lost its Jesuit character’ and in 1970 the director was removed from his position and also from the Order of Jesus.⁶² Finally, in the late 1970s the San Miguel cosmic physics observatory was absorbed by the Argentine air force, incorporated into a National Commission for Space Research and, after subsequent reorganisations, gradually lost its original identity.

This gradual decline and final abandonment of a direct Jesuit presence in cosmic physics may not have been just a matter of Argentina, or of cosmic physics either. In 1991, with a delay of some twenty years and perhaps in less traumatic circumstances than in Argentina, the far more substantial, prestigious and older Observatorio del Ebro, together with other Jesuit-supported science institutions, was also remodelled and transferred to the new Jesuit Universitat Ramon Llull, created in Barcelona in 1989, of which it became a division. A similar decision was adopted by the order with regard to other Jesuit institutes of cosmic physics and astronomical observatories established in different countries across the world. This shows the complexity, and also the elasticity, of relations between the Jesuits and their scientific establishments in the last decades of the 20th century.

Conclusion

Over a long period of time the Order of Jesus had a worldwide influence on the circulation of knowledge on the exact sciences and astronomy. In different forms, their concerns reached South America and, in particular, the territories of what is today Argentina. This happened from around the late 17th century and affected both areas of education and some early forms of research activity. In those years Jesuit expertise in the exact sciences was mainly in areas of positional astronomy. The work of Buenaventura Suárez is a remarkable example of that.

In the 19th century, after they returned from expulsion, the order began to develop an interest in new areas of the exact sciences, in particular, cosmic physics, then a novel field in astronomy related closely to astrophysics. In addition, through their research work in this and other areas of the exact sciences the Jesuits were able to generate an interesting group of skilled scientists. This helped them to improve considerably the quality of teaching they could offer in their schools: they began to match in the sciences the quality of teaching they had traditionally offered in the classics. However, by the middle of the 20th century, on a worldwide scale, the Jesuits began to make a clear change of direction and leave the field of cosmic physics, keeping only a reduced presence in astronomy. Their painstaking work has left as a legacy a highly reliable worldwide collection of data on seismology and in other areas. It is still used today as a standard for comparison with contemporary series of observations.

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* I wish to thank personnel at the Archivo y Biblioteca de la Universidad de Córdoba, the Archivo Provincial de Córdoba, the library of Colegio del Salvador, the Archivo Historico Nacional and the Biblioteca Nacional, Buenos Aires for their kind help when I consulted these archives. I also wish to acknowledge R. P. Dr. Luis Felipe Alberca, director of the Observatorio del Ebro at the time of my visit, for giving me permission to access fully the observatory’s library and archives; the observatory’s librarian, María Genescà i Sitges, for her kind support and advice; and, finally, R. P. Dr. Josep Oriol Cardús i Almeda, astronomer at the Observatorio del Ebro for over 50 years and also a former director, for his friendly reception and for interesting conversations on the history of his institution. I also wish to thank Imperial College, London, for its support and the Royal Society, London, for a grant which allowed me to work at the Observatorio del Ebro, Catalonia, and in archives in Buenos Aires and Córdoba, Argentina. Finally, I wish to express my gratitude to Professor Linda Newson and to an anonymous referee for valuable comments on an earlier draft of this contribution.

1 G. Furlong, ‘El primer astrónomo argentino, Buenaventura Suárez’, Estudios, 16 (1919): 102–17 and 172–85; Glorias Santafesinas: Buenaventura Suárez, Francisco Javier Iturri, Cristóbal Altamirano, Estudios Bibliográficos (Buenos Aires: Surgo, 1929); Los Jesuitas y la cultura Rioplatense (Montevideo: Urta y Curbelo, 1933); Historia del Colegio del Salvador y de sus irradiaciones espirituales en la ciudad de Buenos Aires, 1617–1943, 2 vols. (Buenos Aires: Colegio del Salvador, 1943); Matemáticos argentinos durante la dominación Hispánica (Buenos Aires: Huarpes, 1945); Naturalistas argentinos durante la dominación hispánica (Buenos Aires: Huarpes, 1948).

2 Furlong, Matemáticos argentinos, pp. 25–6.

3 U. Baldini, ‘Legem impone subactis’. Studii su filosofía e scienza dei Gesuiti in Italia, 1540–1632 (Rome: Bulzoni, 1992); and ‘The teaching of mathematics in the Jesuit colleges of Portugal, from 1640 to Pombal’, in L. Saraiva and H. Leitão (eds.), The Practice of Mathematics in Portugal (Coimbra: Acta Universitates Conimbrigensis, 2004), pp. 293–466; J.A. Sánchez Pérez, ‘La Matemática’, in Estudios sobre la ciencia española del siglo XVII (Madrid: Asociación Nacional de Historiadores de la Ciencia Española, 2004), pp. 597–633; D. Goodman, ‘Science and the clergy in the Spanish Enlightenment’, History of Science, 21 (1983): 111– 40; and ‘The scientific revolution in Spain and Portugal’, in R. Porter and M. Teuch (eds.), The Scientific Revolution in National Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 158–77; C. Ziller Camenietzki, ‘A Companhia de Jesus e a ciência na America portuguesa entre 1663 e 1759’, in C.M. Silva da Silva (ed.), Segundo Seminario de História da Matemática (Vitoria: UFES, 1999), pp. 156–65.

4 On the Jesuits’ teaching system, see P.F. Grendler, ‘The culture of the Jesuit teacher 1548– 1773’, Journal of Jesuit Studies, 3 (2016): 17–41.

5 The Colegio San Ignacio (or Colegio Grande), later Real Colegio de San Carlos and, finally, from 1863 the Colegio Nacional Buenos Aires.

6 Furlong, Naturalistas argentinos.

7 For details on the contemporary Jesuits’ understanding of the science of physics see M. Hellyer, Catholic Physics: Jesuit Natural Philosophy in Early Modern Germany (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), chapters 4–6.

8 The publication of a valuable collection of documents by P. de Angelis, Colección de obras y documentos relativos a la historia antigua y moderna de las Provincias del Rio de la Plata, 1836, vols. 4–7 (Buenos Aires: Imprenta del Estado, 1836–7) (which includes Diego de Alvear’s diary: ‘Relación geográfica e histórica de la Provincia de Misiones’), helped to understand, more accurately and from different angles, the Jesuits’ scientific heritage. It was followed by a series of interesting works, such as J.M. Gutiérrez, Origen y desarrollo de la enseñanza pública superior en Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires: La Cultura Argentina, 1915); and J. Probst, ‘La enseñanza durante la época colonial (1771–1810)’, in ‘La Educación en la República Argentina durante la época colonial’, Documentos para la Historia Argentina, vol. 18 (Buenos Aires: Universidad, 1924); and, more recently by Furlong, Matemáticos argentinos.

9 Several other dates have been suggested; the date quoted here is that given in the recent, well-documented work by M. de Asúa, Science in the Vanished Arcadia: Knowledge of Nature in the Jesuit of Paraguay and Río de la Plata (Leiden: Brill, 2014). A different set of dates is given by other authors: A. de Backer and A. de Backer suggest 1678–1756 (Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus, vol. 12 (Paris: Picard, 1932), p. 1660).

10 P. Allen studied that international circuit, but without discussing Suárez’s contacts with that Society (P. Allen, ‘The Royal Society and Latin America as reflected in the Philosophical Transactions, 1665–1740’, Isis, 37 (1947): 132–8). See also R. Stearns, Science in the British Colonies of America (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1970).

11 B. Suárez, Lunario de un siglo (Barcelona: Pablo Nadal, c.1740) is one of the earliest available editions.

12 A new edition appeared in 1744, which was reprinted in 1748 and 1752; probably the last edition was published by the Universidad Nacional de Misiones, Posadas, in 2009.

13 Suárez wrote ‘todos los movimientos medios de las conjunciones, oposiciones y cuartos de la Luna con el Sol, y las anomalías entrambos luminares’ (Furlong, ‘Buenaventura Suárez’, 112).

14 Furlong, ‘Buenaventura Suárez’.

15 Furlong, ‘Buenaventura Suárez’, 116.

16 M. de Asúa, La ciencia de mayo. La cultura científica en el Río de la Plata, 1800–1820 (Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2010); and ‘The publication of the astronomical observations of Buenaventura Suárez SJ, (1679–1750) in European Scientific Journals’, Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, 7 (2) (2004): 81–84; and Asúa, Science in the Vanished Arcadia.

17 H. Tiganelli, ‘El primer lunario criollo’, Saber y Tiempo, 17 (2004): 5–60.

18 S. Galindo and M.A. Rodríguez-Meza, ‘Buenaventura Suárez, S.J. (1679–1750): telescope maker, Jovian satellites observer’, Revista Mexicana de Física, 57 (2011): 121–33 and 144–51.

19 For a comparison of mathematics books in Spain in the same period, see Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales, Catálogo de Libros Antiguos: Siglos XV–XVIII (Madrid: Real Academia, 1991).

20 The collection contains 1,602 titles out of an original number of about 3,200.

21 R. Casazza, Programa nacional de catalogación, restauración y estudio histórico crítico de la bibliografía colonial actualmente existente en la República Argentina (Buenos Aires: Biblioteca Nacional, 2001).

22 W.B. Redmond, Bibliography of the Philosophy in the Iberian Colonies of America (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1972), p. 24.

23 E. del Carmen Pereira, Physica generalis, translated and published by Juan Chiabra (La Plata: Universidad Nacional de La Plata, 1911 [1784]).

24 R.G. Loyarte, La evolución de la física (Buenos Aires: Sociedad Científica Argentina, 1924), pp. 10, 15.

25 This recent discovery is discussed in S.G.A. Benito Moya, ‘El libro manuscrito en la Córdoba del Siglo XVIII: el caso de la Physica Particularis de Fr. Elías del Carmen Pereyra’, Bibliographica americana, 8 (2012): 32–63.

26 M. Sánchez Herrador, ‘La biblioteca del Colegio de La Encarnación de los Jesuitas de Montilla’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, 2016).

27 Benito Moya, ‘El libro manuscrito’; V.S. Albis and L.C. Arboleda, ‘Newton’s Principia in Latin America’, Historia mathematica, 15 (1988): 376–9; C. Lertora Mendoza, ‘Bibliografía newtoniana en el Río de la Plata, siglo XVIII’, in Newton en América. Tercer Congreso Latinoamericano de Historia de las Ciencias y la Tecnología, Mexico, 1992 (FEPAI, 1995); and ‘Introducción de las teorías newtonianas en el Rio de la Plata’, in A. Lafuente, A. Elena and M. Ortega (eds.), Mundialización de la ciencia y cultura nacional (Madrid: Universidad Autónoma-Doce Calles, 1993, pp. 307–24; Asúa, ‘Astronomical observations of Buenaventura Suárez’ and ‘La ciencia de mayo’.

28 G. Kratz, El tratado hispano-portugués de límites de 1750 y sus consecuencias. Estudio sobre la abolición de la Compañía de Jesús (Rome: Bibliotheca Instittuti Historici Societatis IESU, 1954).

29 J. Sala Catalá, ‘La ciencia en las expediciones de límites hispano-portuguesas y sus consecuencias sobre la abolición de la Compañía de Jesús’, Dynamis, 12 (1992): 23–33; L. Martín-Merás, ‘Fondos cartográficos y documentales de la Comisión de Límites de Brasil en el siglo XVIII en el Museo Naval de Madrid’, Terra Brasilis, 7 – 8 – 9 (2007):1–89.

30 C. Dassen, ‘La facultad de matemáticas de Buenos Aires (1874–1880) y sus antecedentes’, Anales de la Academia Nacional de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales de Buenos Aires, 5 (1940): 1–21.

31 On the interesting Altolaguirre family, see S.M. Socolow, The Bureaucrats of Buenos Aires, 1769–1810: Amor Al Real Servicio (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1987).

32 On contemporary education, see J.C. Chiaramonte, La Ilustración en el Río de la Plata (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 2007).

33 Furlong, Matemáticos argentinos, pp. 200–15.

34 See S. Shapin and S. Schaffer, Leviathan and the Air Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011).

35 For a discussion of these differences see C. Bruno, Historia de la iglesia en Argentina, 12 vols. (Buenos Aires: Don Bosco, 1967–1981 [1824–40]), vol. 9 (1974), chapter 10.

36 On the history of this school up to 1943, see Furlong, Historia del Colegio.

37 F.A. Linari, ‘El P. José Ubach, S.J.’, Ibérica, 44 (1935): 276–7.

38 On this discussion see C. Smith and M. Norton Wise, Energy and Empire: A Biographical Study of Lord Kelvin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), in particular pp. 407–648: Part III: ‘The economy of nature’; G. Gooday, ‘Sunspots, weather, and the unseen universe: Balfour Stewart’s anti-materialist representations of Energy in British periodicals’, in G. Cantor and S. Shuttleworth (eds.), Science Serialized: Representation of the Sciences in Nineteenth Century Periodicals (London: MIT Press, 2004) pp. 111–47, contains a number of interesting insights on the popular understanding of the conservation principles and of solar spots.

39 A. von Humboldt, Kosmos. Entwurf einer physischen Weltbeschreibung (Stuttgart and Tübingen: Cotta, 1845).

40 H. Kragh, ‘The source of solar energy, ca. 1840–1910: from meteoric hypothesis to radioactive speculations’, European Physical Journal, 41 (2016): 365–94.

41 See point 30 of Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical ‘Aeterni Patris, Encyclical on the Restoration of Christian Philosophy’, Rome, 4 Aug. 1879 (Rome: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Roma, 1879).

42 For a detailed description of the facilities available in Jesuit observatories across the world at the beginning of the 20th century, see P. de Vregille, ‘Les observatoires de la Compagnie de Jésus au début du XXe. siècle’, Revue des questions scientifiques, 59 (1906) (3rd ser., vol. 9, 1906): 10–72 and 493–579.

43 For a short biography of Landerer, see Anuario de la Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales (Madrid: Academia, 1923): 206-11.

44 On the scientific personality of some of these visiting astronomers see L. Pyenson, Civilizing Mission, Exact Sciences and French Overseas Expansión, 1830–1940 (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 1993).

45 I. Puig, El Observatorio del Ebro. Idea general sobre el mismo (Tortosa: Imprenta Moderna, 1927).

46 This is reported in J. Ubach, ‘Determinación de la posición geográfica del observatorio del Ebro’, Memorias del Observatorio del Ebro, 6 (1919).

47 The Instituto Geográfico Militar.

48 E.L. Ortiz, ‘A convergence of interests: Einstein’s visit to Argentina in 1925’, Ibero-Amerikanisches Archiv, 20 (1995): 67–126 (95).

49 J. Ubach, La teoría de la relatividad en la física moderna: Lorentz, Minkowski, Einstein (Buenos Aires: Amorrortu, 1920).

50 J. Ubach, El pasado y el presente del problema de la evolución (Buenos Aires: Amorrortu, 1922).

51 J. Zanca, ‘Los cursos de cultura católica en los años veinte. Intelectuales, curas y “conversos”’, in P. Bruno (ed.), Sociabilidades y vida cultural. Buenos Aires, 1860–1930 (Bernal: Editorial de la Universidad de Quilmes, 2014), pp. 281–311.

52 E.L. Ortiz, ‘Las relaciones scientíficas entre Argentina y España a principios de este siglo. La JAE y la Institución Cultural Española’, in J.M. Sánchez Ron (ed.), La Junta para Ampliación de Estudios e Investigaciones Científicas 80 años después: 1907–1987 (Madrid: CSIC, 1988), vol. 2, pp. 119–58.

53 This title was used by the authorities which emerged from the military coup d’état of September 1943 to designate a non-elected official.

54 S. Paolantonio, ‘Sobre cuando se ofreció la dirección del Observatorio de Córdoba a un Catalán’, in Historia de la Astronomía, Córdoba, https://historiadelaastronomia.wordpress.com/documentos/perrine-rodes/ [accessed 10 Aug. 2018].

55 Lluís Rodés i Campderá, Diario en tiempo de guerra, 20 de julio de 1936–22 de octubre de 1938 (Roquetes: Observatori de l’Ebre, 2015).

56 A. Roca, ‘El Diari de guerra d’un clerge demòcrata: Lluís Rodés i Camderà (1881–1939)’, Quaderns d’Història de l’Enginyeria, 16 (2018): 279–86.

57 E.L. Ortiz, ‘La Comisión del Arco de Meridiano’, Saber y Tiempo, 19 (2005):127–88.

58 I. Puig, Manual de astronomía: resumen sintético de nuestros conocimientos sobre el Cosmos (Buenos Aires: Albatros, 1942).

59 I. Puig, Qué es la física cósmica? (Buenos Aires: Espasa-Calpe, 1944).

60 Puig’s newspaper contributions were later collected in a series of books published between 1938 and 1940: Actualidades científicas (Buenos Aires: Pezza, 1938–1940).

61 M. Mariscotti, El secreto atómico de Huemul (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana-Planeta, 1985), pp. 233–42.

62 A. Udías, Jesuit Contribution to Science: A History (Heidelberg: Springer, 2015), p. 151.