Political Exiles /Banishments and Artistic Affinities of Fray Manuel de San Juan Crisóstomo Nájera, 1803-1853

Abstract

A biography of the monk and scholar Manuel de San Juan Crisóstomo Najera giving full account of his intellectual and political personality, and also of his activity as art promoter and aesthetic philosopher, is still something waiting to be produced. This text seeks to reconstruct the figure of Nájera—the “learned cleric”—along with the many aspects of his work as a public figure: educator, linguist, geographer, archaeologist, translator, religious preacher, bibliophile and promoter of artistic renewal at the Academy of San Carlos and the schools of San Luis Potosí and Guadalajara. It also brings to light his political thought and his activism during the emergence of the conservative party—a forgotten topic—and his close literary and intellectual relationship with Bernardo Couto and Lucas Alamán (who, upon his death, built the sculpture and monument, a work of Manuel Vilar, that is still preserved in the Hospital de Jesús).