ALTAMIRANO, DIEGO FRANCISCO DE

Jesuit missionary; b. Madrid, Oct. 26, 1625 (or possibly Oct. 18 or 26, 1626); d. Lima, Dec. 22, 1715. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1642. For some ten years he lived as a member of the province of the Philippines, and he made his solemn profession on Sept. 11, 1661. He was professor of theology at the University of Córdoba del Tucumán, Argentina, and rector of the major seminary. As a missionary to the Chaco, he founded the reduction of St. Francis Xavier, and he was provincial of Paraguay from 1677 to 1681. He served as procurator for Madrid and Rome in 1683, visitor of the Nuevo Reino (Colombia and Ecuador), visitor and provincial of Peru, and rector of the College of Lima. An outstanding religious superior, he was a staunch advocate of Jesuit rights in their internal government and in their relationship with the crown and the bishops. He was a historian of the society in the regions with which he was personally acquainted. His contribution to missionary activity ranged from writing a catechism in the Mocobí tongue to supervising the strategic location of missions as far south as the Strait of Magellan. He supported military protection for missions and protected the missions against the incursions of the Paulistas and of other tribes. He tried to stop the king from compelling the natives to grow maté and to export it from their own territory.

Bibliography: e. torres saldamando, Los antiguos Jesuítas del Perú (Lima 1882). c. sommervogel et al., Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus, 11 v. (Brussels–Paris 1890–1932) 1:208–209.

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