Biography of Braulio Foz: – Spanish writer. He intervened actively in the War of Independence and founded Zaragoza in El Eco de Aragon. He is the author of historical treatises and plays, but owes his fame to the novel Vida de Pedro Saputo (1844).
Biography of Braulio Foz
- Born:- 1791, Fórnoles, Spain
- Died:- 20 April 1865, Borja, Zaragoza, Spain
- People also search for:- Jesús Cisneros, Antonio Sas, Antonio Peiró Arroyo, Virginia Maza Castán
Braulio Foz fought against the French in the War of Independence; taken prisoner and taken to France, studied there sciences and languages.
See Also: Biography of Miguel Fisac Serna
On his return to Spain he was appointed professor of Latin and French at the University of Huesca and, later, of Greek in that of Saragossa, a position which the Fernandine reaction forced him to abandon.
He lived in France as a political emigre until 1824, the year in which he returned to Saragossa and regained his chair. In 1837 he founded and directed the newspaper El Eco de Aragon.
He owes books and pamphlets on very different subjects (historical, juridical, scientific, literary, moral and religious), but he is remembered above all as author of the Life of Pedro Saputo (1844), fictionalized biography of a legendary personage that the author presents as traditional in the High Aragon.
The nickname of this personage, Saputo, comes from a strong dialectal participle that means “wise” or “known”. Already as a child Pedro Saputo astonishes the people for his talent, which allows him to learn by his own lights and very quickly the sciences, arts and trades.
Then comes the story of his adventures in the regions of Huesca and Somontano, as well as his travels throughout Spain.
In the biography are introduced romantic anecdotes of clearly romantic flavor; analogous sense has the recognition of his father, who happens to be a leading gentleman and, already widowed, marries the mother of Peter.
The fame of Pedro Saputo attracts the people, who come to consult him, and arrives at the same court of Madrid, where he travels with a commission of the neighbors of Almudévar, his native town.
Therefore it is not strange that he be called again by the king; but Saputo departs for a journey from which he will no longer return: mysteriously disappears on the road and leaves in the greatest desolation his parents and soon to be his wife.
The action seems to be in the seventeenth century, although the author is careful not to make chronological precisions to save the legendary character of his hero.
Foz uses a rich and rich language, built with an intentional archaism, maintaining in the middle of the Romantic period, with great decorum, the tone of the Spanish picaresque novel, which in this case is also exemplary. The lexicon is magnificent, giving a singular interest to the abundant use of Aragonese words.
On the other hand, the figure of Pedro Saputo serves to compile to him an extensive and graceful series of histories and counts altoaragoneses Braulio Foz had to collect personally by those towns; some of them are of a burlesque character, like the suit to the Sun that they tried to initiate the inhabitants of Almudevar.
