Juan Andrés

Juan Andrés y Morell (15 February 1740 in Planes, Alicante – 12 January 1817 in Rome) was a Spanish Jesuit priest, Christian humanist and literary critic of the Age of Enlightenment. He was the creator of world history and comparative literature (i.e. of Letters and Sciences of the eighteenth century) through the most important and extensive of his works: Dell'Origine, progressi e stato d'ogni attuale letteratura (1st ed. Italian, Parma, 1782–1799) – Origen, progresos y estado actual de toda la literatura (Madrid, 1784–1806, but was incomplete as it did not include the part devoted to the ecclesiastical sciences) only recently restored to a critical and complete edition. He is one of the most important authors, together with Lorenzo Hervás, Antonio Eximeno, Francisco Javier Clavijero or Celestino Mutis, of the Spanish Universalist School of the 18th century.