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José Rodrigo Pertegás [or Josep Rodrigo Pertegàs] (Valencia, 17/3/1854 - Valencia, 4/4/1930)

 

José Rodrigo Pertegás

He graduated in the Faculty of Medicine in Valencia in 1875 and practised as a rural doctor for a year, but his state of health and the death of his mother led him to return to Valencia, where he held several municipal jobs related to health and where he was awarded the municipal medal of merit for his work in the cholera epidemic of 1890. Even so, he gradually abandoned the practice of medicine to devote himself to historical research, his true vocation, although he would continue to be closely linked to the medical profession, being a member of the Valencian Medical Institute and part of its governing board on several occasions, as well as a full member of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Valencia.

He was also very active in Valencian cultural life, as a member of a large number of entities such as the Círculo de Bellas Artes de Valencia, the Sociedad de Agricultura, the Centro de Cultura Valenciana (of which he was director), Lo Rat Penat or even the Gaster-Club, the gastronomic and sports society founded by Ramón y Cajal, as well as being a corresponding member of entities such as the Real Academia de la Historia Española or the Reial Acadèmia de Bones Lletres de Barcelona.

As a historian, he was in contact with other Valencian scholars of his time such as Roque Chabás, Sanchis Sivera or Serrano Morales, using archival sources or dealing with specific topics of Valencian history in which there had not been much interest until then. His knowledge of the new European historiographical currents of the time and of the historic-methodical bibliography of various countries is also noteworthy.

His research specialities were Valencian history and the history of medicine and epidemics, especially in the Middle Ages, his most ambitious project being a biographical dictionary of all Valencian doctors from medieval times; although he did not finish it, he did publish several short works in different journals, newspapers and almanacs, as well as working as a palaeographer or searching for historical sources in archives and libraries on behalf of other authors. This dedication to historical research meant that by the time of his death he had accumulated an enormous personal archive of notes and transcriptions of historical documents.

 

More biographic information 

 

Donation

When he died, his private library was acquired by the Biblioteca de Catalunya, although his personal archive remained in the family home. Even so, the sale included some religious volumes of handwritten notes, and a few other manuscripts were kept by his executor Josep Sanchis Sivera (preserved today in the Biblioteca Valenciana as part of his legacy). 

It would be decades later when the part of this archive kept by the family would be put up for sale and bought by the researcher José María López Piñero, being deposited in the Institute of History of Medicine and Science that he himself founded, and later in the current Biblioteca Historicomèdica.

This collection consists of one hundred and thirty manuscripts with biographical and biobibliographical data, and notes on epidemics, health, medicine in Valencia, etc.; information that in many cases is currently accessible in the archives from which he obtained it, but which in others can only be found in his notes, as the original archives have disappeared.
A complete digital edition of all the documents was made on CD-ROM, which is mentioned in the Bibliography section, and which can also be consulted in our library.

 

Works at the University of Valencia Library Catalogue

Follow the links to see what works we have in the University of Valencia Libraries:

 

Bibliographic selection as author

Monographs

Journal articles