Juan Menéndez Pidal [SEP] native language
Juan Menéndez Pidal
Juan Menéndez Pidal (1858, Madrid – 1915) was a Spanish archivist, jurisconsult, historian, and poet, brother of Luis and Ramón Menéndez Pidal. He was long a director of the Archivo Histórico Nacional at Madrid, and a director of the "Revista de Archivos, Bibliotecas, y Museos".
Born in Madrid, he studied law until he obtained his title, and then devoted himself to journalism. His "Dios y César", an ecclesiastical and legal study of the relation of
, Juan Menéndez Fernández, was a lawyer and magistrate from Asturias. His mother was Ramona Pidal, also an Asturian. His older brother, Juan Menéndez Pidal, whom he outlived by more than fifty years, was also a literary scholar of the folk poetry of Asturias. Another older brother, Luis Menéndez Pidal was a notable realist painter.
He studied at the University of Madrid. In 1899 he was appointed chair in Romance studies in the same university, a position that he held until his retirement in 1939. In