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Universidad del Pacífico

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Memories of Trévous, of various authors (1704-1771)

Authors: Compañía de Jesús

The Memorias de Trévoux is a particularly curious work: it is an encyclopedic dictionary written collectively by the Jesuits, throughout most of the eighteenth century, in the city of Trévoux, where one of the most important Jesuits colleges was located. As an encyclopedia, it has a secular style different from the books of the French writers of the Enlightenment Age, because the Memorias were written later than them. Nevertheless these memories are still in the framework of the illustration current of the French eighteenth century.

Cárdenas quotes this volume almost tangentially in the same way he does with the Diccionario de Moreri, although always placing this last one later. The memories  appear in two times pretending to give a universal reference that attaches them with the works of Moreri, Voltaire and Feijoo. This last (Feijoo) is a Spanish writer that frequently quotes the Memorias de Trévoux, so it makes us think that it was through him that Cárdenas knew his work.