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Manuel Milà i Fontanals, philologist of the Renaixença

Vilafranca del Penedès, Alt Penedès, Barcelona

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Manuel Milà i Fontanals, philologist of the Renaixença

Historical milestone · Vilafranca del Penedès, Alt Penedès, Barcelona

Image of Vilafranca del Penedès, not of the place itself.

Manuel Milà i Fontanals was born in Vilafranca del Penedès on 4 May 1818 and died in the same town on 16 July 1884. A philologist, scholar and writer, he is regarded as one of the driving forces of the Renaixença thanks to his role in restoring the Jocs Florals and in the field of spelling, and he is held to be a key figure in the historical development of Catalan grammar, of which he was one of the first dialectologists. A professor in Barcelona and teacher of Menéndez Pelayo, he compiled the Catalan ballad tradition and studied troubadour poetry, thereby giving the Renaixença a scholarly foundation. The philologist Jaume Riera i Sans attributed to him the forgery of the novel Curial e Güelfa, passing it off as a genuine 15th-century text, an accusation that was later shown to be false.

1818-1884

Photo: Enfo (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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