Monument to Rafael Landívar

It is located on the Alameda de Santa Lucia Walk and 5ª Calle Poniente, being in fact the funeral monument where the remains of the remembered Jesuit poet rest.

Regarding history, talking about the monument offers so little compared with the life and work that Rafael Landivar gave to this country.

He was born in La Antigua Guatemala, known back then as the city of Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala, on October 31, 1731.

His parents were rich noblemen. He grew up in loneliness due to his fragile health, surrounded mainly by tutors who taught them what later gave brilliant results. He got a PhD and learned Latin at a very young age.

At 16, he got a “master of arts” degree. He became a teacher and traveled to Mexico to complete his priesthood, celebrating his first Mass in that country. He was part of the Company of Jesus, where there are still ruins, and next to it, the old School, the Spanish Cooperation Formation Center, an institution that restored what was left of the complex, ancient house for famous intellectuals.

In 1767, by command of Spain, every Jesuit was expelled from the kingdom, and, because of that, Landivar took off for Italy and never came back. Later on, Guatemalan government brought his remains back to his country to preserve them inside the monument that is now on the Alameda.

His greatest work, a big treasure mistaken with a term

Rusticatio Mexicana is without any doubt his most remembered legacy, which was published in 1781 and later on with new editions. It was written with the Latin poetry style. He chose that title because it enclosed a great content about the region, and because back then, in Europe, the Spanish territory in America was known by the name of Mexico. His work in general is of great literary significance and has been acknowledged internationally as one of the great values of Guatemalan literature.