Jorge Juan y Santacilia
Encyclopedia
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
, scientist, naval officer, and mariner.
Family and Education
Jorge Juan was born on the estate El Fondonet, the property of his grandfather don Cipriano Juan Vergarain in NoveldaNovelda
Novelda is a town located in the province of Alicante, Spain. , it has a total population of 27,135 inhabitants.Novelda has important quarries and mines of marble, limestone, silica, clay and gypsum. It is a major centre of the marble industry....
, Alicante
Alicante (province)
Alicante or Alacant is a province of eastern Spain, in the southern part of the Valencian Community. It is bordered by the provinces of Murcia on the southwest, Albacete on the west, Valencia on the north, and the Mediterranean Sea on the east...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
. He was baptised in the Church at Monforte del Cid
Monforte del Cid
Monforte del Cid is a village in the province of Alicante and autonomous community of Valencia, Spain.-References:...
. Juan was born of two distinguished families: his father was don Bernardo Juan y Canicia who came from the branch of the Counts of Peñalba, and his mother was doña Violante Santacilia y Soler de Cornellá, who came from prominent land-owning family in Elche. Both of his parents were widowed and remarried. They lived in their house on the Plaza del Mar in Alicante and only vacationed in Novelda.
His father died when Juan was only three years old and under the care of the Jesuits of the Jesuit school in Alicante. His uncle don Antonio Juan, a Canon at the Collegiate Church took charge of young Jorge and continued his education. Later another uncle, don Cipriano Juan, a Knight of the Order of Malta, took charge of his education and sent him to Zaragoza
Zaragoza
Zaragoza , also called Saragossa in English, is the capital city of the Zaragoza Province and of the autonomous community of Aragon, Spain...
for a preparatory education for higher studies.
At the age of 12 he was sent to Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
to receive Holy Orders at the Order of Malta. The next year he became page to the Grand Master don Antonio Manuel de Villena, who granted him the title of Commander of Aliaga in Aragón. Thus he received his first title when he was only 14. Soon he became a Knight of the Order of Malta, which implied life-long celibacy.
In 1729, when he was 16, he returned to Spain and applied for entry to the Royal Company of Marine Guards, the Spanish military school for naval officers. He entered the academy in 1730 and studied modern technical and scientific studies subjects such as geometry
Geometry
Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....
, trigonometry
Trigonometry
Trigonometry is a branch of mathematics that studies triangles and the relationships between their sides and the angles between these sides. Trigonometry defines the trigonometric functions, which describe those relationships and have applicability to cyclical phenomena, such as waves...
, astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
, navigation
Navigation
Navigation is the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another. It is also the term of art used for the specialized knowledge used by navigators to perform navigation tasks...
, hydrography
Hydrography
Hydrography is the measurement of the depths, the tides and currents of a body of water and establishment of the sea, river or lake bed topography and morphology. Normally and historically for the purpose of charting a body of water for the safe navigation of shipping...
, and cartography
Cartography
Cartography is the study and practice of making maps. Combining science, aesthetics, and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively.The fundamental problems of traditional cartography are to:*Set the map's...
. He also completed his education in the humanities
Humanities
The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....
with classes in drawing, music and dancing. He earned the reputation of being an outstanding student and his fellow students called him Euclid
Euclid
Euclid , fl. 300 BC, also known as Euclid of Alexandria, was a Greek mathematician, often referred to as the "Father of Geometry". He was active in Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy I...
. He finished his studies at the academy in 1734. At the young age of 22 he was given command of a corvette
Corvette
A corvette is a small, maneuverable, lightly armed warship, originally smaller than a frigate and larger than a coastal patrol craft or fast attack craft , although many recent designs resemble frigates in size and role...
and he participated in the expedition against Oran
Oran
Oran is a major city on the northwestern Mediterranean coast of Algeria, and the second largest city of the country.It is the capital of the Oran Province . The city has a population of 759,645 , while the metropolitan area has a population of approximately 1,500,000, making it the second largest...
and the campaign
Battle of Bitonto
The Battle of Bitonto was a Spanish victory over Austrian forces near Bitonto in the Kingdom of Naples in the War of Polish Succession...
of Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
.
Career
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Philip V of Spain
Philip V was King of Spain from 15 November 1700 to 15 January 1724, when he abdicated in favor of his son Louis, and from 6 September 1724, when he assumed the throne again upon his son's death, to his death.Before his reign, Philip occupied an exalted place in the royal family of France as a...
asked Jorge Juan and fellow scientist Antonio de Ulloa
Antonio de Ulloa
Antonio de Ulloa y de la Torre-Girault was a Spanish general, explorer, author, astronomer, colonial administrator and the first Spanish governor of Louisiana.Rebellion of 1768]]....
to join the French Geodesic Mission
French Geodesic Mission
The French Geodesic Mission was an 18th-century expedition to what is now Ecuador carried out for the purpose of measuring the roundness of the Earth and measuring the length of a degree of longitude at the Equator...
organized by the French Academy of Sciences
French Academy of Sciences
The French Academy of Sciences is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research...
from Paris, under command of the astronomer Louis Godin. The mission was to measure the length of a degree of meridian arc
Meridian arc
In geodesy, a meridian arc measurement is a highly accurate determination of the distance between two points with the same longitude. Two or more such determinations at different locations then specify the shape of the reference ellipsoid which best approximates the shape of the geoid. This...
at the Equator
Equator
An equator is the intersection of a sphere's surface with the plane perpendicular to the sphere's axis of rotation and containing the sphere's center of mass....
in South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
and to determine the roundness of the Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
. On May 26, 1735 they left Cadiz in the company of the Marquess of Villagarcía, who had just been appointed Viceroy of Peru. Jorge Juan was on board the ship El Conquistador and Antonio de Ulloa on the frigate Incendio. The expedition traveled to Quito
Quito
San Francisco de Quito, most often called Quito , is the capital city of Ecuador in northwestern South America. It is located in north-central Ecuador in the Guayllabamba river basin, on the eastern slopes of Pichincha, an active stratovolcano in the Andes mountains...
in present-day Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...
and after nine years of careful study, determined that the Earth is not perfectly spherical but is oblate, i.e. flattened at the poles. Juan also successfully measured the heights of the mountains of the Andes using a barometer
Barometer
A barometer is a scientific instrument used in meteorology to measure atmospheric pressure. Pressure tendency can forecast short term changes in the weather...
.
Juan remained nine years in America, studying the political and social situation of the Spanish territories. On his return to Spain, King Ferdinand
Ferdinand VI of Spain
Ferdinand VI , called the Learnt, was King of Spain from 9 July 1746 until his death. He was the fourth son of the previous monarch Philip V and his first wife Maria Luisa of Savoy...
promoted him to captain.
The Marques de la Ensenada ordered Juan to travel to England secretly to study new naval construction methods and armament of the English. In 1749 he traveled incognito under the name of Mr. Josues and learned all that he could from the English, and brought back British naval constructors. In an ironic twist, many of them (including Matthew Mullan and Richard Rooth) went on to build the Spanish ships that would later fight in the American Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
and the battle of Trafalgar
Battle of Trafalgar
The Battle of Trafalgar was a sea battle fought between the British Royal Navy and the combined fleets of the French Navy and Spanish Navy, during the War of the Third Coalition of the Napoleonic Wars ....
. On his return to Spain in 1750 he was placed in charge of Spanish naval construction and improving the shipyards and armaments.
On 1757 he founded the National Astronomical Observatory of Spain Observatorio Astronómico Nacional de España.
He died in Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
in 1773 at the age of 60. His reported symptoms, including muscle stiffness and seizures, were almost certainly the result of a cerebral amebic infection. He was buried in the church of San Martín.
Works
- Compendio de navegación (1757)
- Examen marítimo teórico-práctico (1771)
- Estado de la astronomía en Europa (1774)
In collaboration with Antonio de Ulloa
- Plan del camino de Quito al río Esmeraldas, según las observaciones astronómicas de Jorge Juan y Antonio de Ulloa (1736–1742)
- Observaciones astronómicas y físicas hechas en los Reinos del Perú (Madrid, 1748)
- Relación histórica del viaje hecho de orden de su Majestad a la América Meridional (Madrid, 1748)
- Disertación Histórica y Geográfica sobre el Meridiano de Demarcación entre los dominios de España y Portugal (1749)
- Noticias Secretas de América, sobre el estado naval, militar y político del Perú y provincia de Quito (The Secret news of America, on the naval state, military and political of the Peru and province of Quito) (1748) (published in London 1826 after publication was banned by the Spanish government)
Sources
- Biography – Spanish Wikipedia
- Biography – Jorge Juan Foundation
- Ferreiro, Larrie: Measure of the Earth: The Enlightenment Expedition that Reshaped Our World (New York: Basic Books, 2011) ISBN:9780465017232