author
Benito Jerónimo Feijoo
1676–1764
A Benedictine monk, teacher, and essayist, he became one of the clearest voices of the Spanish Enlightenment. His lively, skeptical writing challenged superstition and helped bring scientific and empirical thinking to a wider public.
4 Audiobooks
Essays, or discourses, vol. 2 (of 4) : Selected from the works of Feyjoo, and translated from the Spanish
by Benito Jerónimo Feijoo
Essays, or discourses, vol. 1 (of 4) : Selected from the works of Feyjoo, and translated from the Spanish
by Benito Jerónimo Feijoo
About the author
Born in Galicia in 1676, he entered the Benedictine order at a young age and later taught philosophy and theology at the University of Oviedo. He is widely remembered as a leading intellectual of 18th-century Spain, admired for bringing serious ideas to general readers in an accessible way.
His best-known works, including Teatro crítico universal and Cartas eruditas y curiosas, range across science, religion, medicine, history, and everyday beliefs. Again and again, he pushed readers to question rumor, error, and superstition, making him an important popularizer of rational and empirical thought.
Feijoo died in Oviedo in 1764, but his reputation lasted well beyond his lifetime. He is often seen as a bridge between older scholastic traditions and a more modern, questioning style of essay writing in Spanish literature.