Pedro Lozano

Born in Madrid in 1697, Pedro Lozano entered the Society of Jesus while still very young and was soon sent to the Province of Paraguay. He spent much of his life in the Río de la Plata region, studying, teaching, and writing within the Jesuit world of colonial South America.

Lozano became known for his wide-ranging historical and ethnographic work. He wrote about the Jesuit missions, the conquest and settlement of Paraguay, Río de la Plata, and Tucumán, and the lives of Indigenous peoples and colonial communities. His books are still used by historians because they preserve early accounts of places and events that were not always documented elsewhere.

He died in Humahuaca in 1752. Although little personal portrait material seems to survive, his reputation rests firmly on his writing: careful, ambitious chronicles that helped shape how later generations understood the history of the Jesuit provinces in South America.