Manuel Codorniu
Spanish politician, physician, publisher and educator
Manuel Codorniu y Ferreras (1 June 1788 – 18 July 1857) was a Spanish military physician, educator and publisher who served in the Senate (1841–1843) and in the Constituent Cortes (1854–1856) of his native country.
During his lifetime, he headed several medical and political publications —including El Sol, an influential masonic newspaper that actively opposed Mexican Emperor Agustín de Iturbide in the 1820s— and started an education program in Mexico based on the works of Joseph Lancaster.
Biography
Manuel Codorniu y Ferreras was born in Esparreguera, a small town in the Province of Barcelona, Catalonia, on 1 June 1788. Both his father and grandfather were physicians, and his father, Manuel Codorniu Vidal, served as a military physician as well.
He joined the Conciliar Seminary of Barcelona in 1797 and took courses in Latin, Rhetoric, Physics, Mathematics and Metaphysics. In 1804, he graduated with a degree in philosophy (Spanish: bachiller en Filosofía) from the University of Cervera and took some courses in Pathology and clinical practice at the University of Valencia. After enrolling in a group of volunteers at the Royal University of Toledo —where courses could be accredited without examination— he returned to Cervera and graduated with a degree in medicine in 1810.
He enlisted at the royal army when the Peninsular War broke out between Spanish monarchists and French imperial forces commanded by Napoléon Bonaparte. Carlos Nagués assigned him to the Sant Ferran Castle, where he was taken prisoner on 3 May 1811. After the conflict came to and end, he received military awards and a royal pension from King Ferdinand VII.
He joined the Overseas Army (Spanish: Ejército de Ultramar) and left for the New Spain, arriving to the Port of Veracruz with liberal Viceroy Juan O'Donojú on 31 June 1821.
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This entry incorporates text from “Manuel Codorniu” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.