Félix Torres Amat


Félix Torres Amat or Félix Torres i Amat de Palou was a Spanish Bishop. He translated the Bible into vernacular Spanish and published a record of leading authors in Catalan.

Life

Torres Amat, born in Barcelona in 1772, was the son of Joseph Torres and Teresa Amat. He studied languages before joining his uncle Felix Amat in Tarragona where he obtained a doctorate in Philosophy. He then taught philosophy, mathematics and theology becoming Canon of the Collegiate Church of San Ildefonso on May 5, 1806.

New Bible

In 1824, he published a translation of the Bible in vernacular Spanish which had been entrusted to him by the Spanish kings Carlos IV and Fernando VII. This caused some criticism as both he and his father had become associated with Jansenism, and he had to retire to a monastery for some time. On May 1, 1834 he was ordained as the Bishop of Astorga, and in the following year, he met William Harris Rule from Gibraltar as they both shared a common interest in distributing the Bible in people's first languages. Torres Amat had had difficulty publishing his translation, and he had relied on money from Anglicans in London.
Torres Amat was elected to the prestigious Real Academia Española where he briefly held the "T Seat." Torres Amat's bible, known as the, was published with illustrations by Gustave Doré.
Apart from the translation of the Bible, his best-known work is Reports to help form a critical dictionary of Catalan writers and give some idea of the ancient and modern literature of Catalonia. This was based on the work of his brother who had been a leading librarian in Barcelona and he had started to record notable Catalan authors.
Torres Amat died in Madrid on December 29, 1847.

Works