Azara, Félix de (1746–1821)

Félix de Azara (b. 18 May 1746; d. 20 October 1821), scientist and writer. Spanish military man and enlightened scientist, Azara spent twenty years (1781–1801) traveling throughout the viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, gathering information about the area and conducting experiments. He was born in Aragon, and after studying philosophy at the University of Huesca, entered the Military Academy at Barcelona. Commissioned as alférez (ensign) in the Company of Engineers, he participated as an officer in the Algiers campaign of 1775. By 1781, with the rank of lieutenant colonel, Azara was in America to participate in the boundary commission charged with fixing the limits between the Spanish and Portuguese dominions in South America. Upon returning to Spain in 1802, Azara wrote scientific treatises as well as general descriptions of the area. Best known are Descripción é historia del Paraguay y del Río de la Plata (1847) and Viajes por la América meridional (1809).

See alsoScience .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Enrique Udaondo, Diccionario biográfico colonial argentino (1945), pp. 122-123.

Additional Bibliography

Alterach, Miguel Angel. La expulsión de los jesuitas: Misión Bucareli y Ursúa y "Memoria histórica-" de Doblas para Felix de Azara. Buenos Aires, 2000.

Mones, Alvaro, and Miguel A. Klappenbach. Un ilustrado aragonés en el virreinato del Río de la Plata: Félix de Azara, 1742–1821: estudios sobre su vida, su obra y su pensamiento. Montevideo: Museo Nacional de Historia Natura, 1997.

                                Susan M. Socolow