Luis Vives

Ortega y Gasset, perhaps distancing himself from his teacher Bonilla y San Martín, author of a spectacular biography of Luis Vives, declared with his characteristic emphaticness that the life of the Valentino philosopher was reduced to being born, studying, writing and dying. However, Vives hides a fascinating story. Neither Bonilla's pretentious biography nor Ortega's minimalist description tell the truth about Vives. With the passage of time, and leaving behind the incredible manipulations of the Franco era, an important and international group of scholars has multiplied the knowledge about our first modern philosopher. Collecting all this knowledge, this biography orders the existence of Vives as an example of an exceptional human type, who knew how to see the inaugural constellation of modernity, in all its problematic complexity, with the eyes of a Valencian Sephardic, but also with the mind of a European humanist. In this way he knew how to firmly maintain his intense sense of filiation, harmony and fidelity to the country, but without giving up his critical and reforming spirit.