PARES | Spanish Archives

Identification

Type:

Person

Preferred form:

Serrano Sanz, Manuel (1866-1932)Other forms

Fechas de existencia:

Ruguilla (Cifuentes, Guadalajara, España) 1866-06-01 - Madrid (España) 1932-11-06

History:

Spanish librarian and historian.

Born in Ruguilla (Guadalajara) in 1886. After receiving his first formation at home from his father, he did the baccalaureate with the Padres Escolapios in Molina de Aragón. He licensed in Law, and Philosophy and Letters by Madrid's Central University, and obtained his doctorate with a thesis about the sailors to America. At the same time, he also studied Theology in the Seminario de Sigüenza. He entered the Cuerpo Facultativo de Archiveros, Bibliotecarios y Anticuarios, being his first destination the Biblioteca Nacional de España, where he worked in the Sección de Impresos y Manuscritos. In 1905, when he got the position of supernumerary in the Cátedra de Historia Universal Antigua y Medieval, he started his period as a teacher. He returned briefly to Madrid to give lessons in the Escuela Superior de Magisterio, and when he returned to Zaragoza, he added to the previous professorship the Historia Moderna y Contemporánea one.

He was an expert paleograph, and one of the firsts in using the notarial protocols as historical sources. In fact, from his collaboration with the archivist and notary Giménez Gran, the opening of the Archivo Histórico de Protocolos de Zaragoza happened. From his historiographic work, the following traits stand out: the interest for the documental edition, the woman's history (with the edition of the Biblioteca de escritoras españolas) or the Americanists topics. Thanks to a pension of the Junta de Ampliación de Estudios, he was able to carry out a research stay in the Archivo General de Indias. He was academic of the Real Academia Española, of the Bellas Artes de San Luis de Zaragoza one, and the Real Academia de la Historia one, among others. He passed away in Madrid in 1932.