Torres Bollo, Diego de
TORRES BOLLO, DIEGO DE
Founder of the reductions of paraguay; b. Villalpando, Spain, 1551; d. Chuquisaca (now Sucre), Bolivia, Aug. 8, 1638. He became a Jesuit on Dec. 16, 1571, and in 1580, when he was already ordained, went to Peru. He was superior of Juli, rector in Cuzco, Quito, and Potosí, and secretary to the provincial and to the visitor. In 1600 he was sent to Rome and Madrid to discuss important matters of his province, to which he returned in 1604. A year later he founded the vice-province of New Granada (Colombia) and in 1607 the province of Paraguay. At the request of the bishop and the governor he started the Guaraní Reductions of Paraguay, on December 8, 1609, with the dispatch of the first two missionaries from Asunción. In 1611–12 he collaborated with oidor Alfaro in making peace with the indigenous peoples. At the end of his term as provincial, in 1615, he was named rector of the school at Córdoba (Argentina), and in 1628 he departed for Chuquisaca.
Bibliography: p. lozano, Historia de la Compañia de Jesús en la Provincia del Paraguay, 2 v. (Madrid 1754–55). r. vargas ugarte, "El P. Diego de Torres Bollo y el cardenal Federico Borromeo: Correspondencia inédita," Boletín del Instituto de investigaciones históricas, Universidad nacional, Buenos Aires 17 (1933–34) 59–82.
[h. storni]