Puigblanch was born in
Mataró (near
Barcelona) on February 3, 1775; son of Antoni Puig Bunyol and Cecília Blanch. Being a child he studied in the School of Santa Ana of the Escolapios (Mataró). Later, he was in the carthusian monastery of Montalegre, but for a short time. In 1799 he travelled to
Madrid to continue his studies: Philosophy in the College of Santo Tomás de Aquino and ecclesiastic discipline in the Reales Estudios de San Isidro. In 1807 he won the post of professor of
Hebrew in the University of
Alcalá de Henares. At this time he publishes
Elementos de lengua hebrea (Elements of Hebrew language), where he gathers
Francesc Orchell's theories. During the
Spanish War of Independence against the French invasion (1808–1814) the representatives of the Spanish Government escaped to
Seville and then to
Cádiz. At this time Puigblanch stands out among the liberals, who take advantage of the exceptional circumstances to make political reforms. He defends strongly the abolition of the
Inquisition, and he shows his arguments publishing
La Inquisición sin máscara (
The Inquisition Unmasked; Cádiz, 1811–1813). For this reason, after the return of the king
Fernando VII, Puigblanch has to leave Spain in 1815. He establishes in
London. There he publishes the English revised edition of his polemic book
The Inquisition Unmasked (1816). He begins to write a poem in
Catalan about the fight for the freedom, personified in the
Castilian War of the Communities (1520–1522), entitled
Las Comunitats de Castella. By this Catalan poem, Puigblanch is recognized as the predecessor of the cultural movement called
Renaixença. In 1820-1823 Puigblanch was again in Spain, thanks to the political circumstances (
Trienio Liberal). He was member of the Spanish Parliament for
Catalonia. In 1823 he returned to London for good, where he was employed at a press and at a pastry shop. In addition, he gave lessons of
Spanish and
French. In 1828 and 1834 he published
Opúsculos gramático-satíricos, in which among many other themes, he defends the possibility of constructing a federal Spanish State. He translated to Spanish the
Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind by
Thomas Brown, entitled
Filosofía del espíritu humano en cien lecciones (1828) and a selection of
Sermons by
Robert Hall (1764–1831) entitled
Sermones entresacados de los que escribió en idioma inglés el Rdo. Roberto Hall (1832). He left unfinished and unpublished the translation of the
Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane, by
Alain-René Lesage. Antonio Puigblanch died on September 25, 1840, at 51 Johnson Street (now Cranleigh Street),
Somers Town, London. ==Works==