Pedro was born at
Toledo, Spain. His father, Alvaro Ortiz de Cisneros, was the son of Pedro Gonzales Cedillo and grandson of Hernando Ortiz de Cisneros, whom
Ferdinand IV had honoured with the governorship of Toledo and important missions. Pedro went to Italy as a
page of
Cardinal Alexander Farnese, and at Rome was admitted by Ignatius of Loyola as a member of the
Society of Jesus on 18 September 1540, eight days before the approval of the order by Paul III. He pursued his studies at the Universities of
Paris,
Leuven, and
Padua (1542) in philosophy and theology. He was ordered in November, 1549, to go to
Palermo, to profess rhetoric at the new college which the Society had just opened in that city. He filled this chair for two years and a half, devoting his leisure time to visiting and consoling the sick in the hospitals. Meanwhile, Ignatius was negotiating the creation of the German College, and during the autumn of 1552 he called on the talent and eloquence of the young professor of rhetoric at Palermo. Ribadeneira amply fulfilled the expectations of his master and delivered the inaugural address amid the applause of an august assembly of prelates and Roman nobles. He was ordained priest 8 December 1553. During the twenty-one years which followed he filled the most important posts in the government of the order. Ignatius, in 1555, sent him on a mission to
Belgium; in pursuance of it he visited
England in 1558. A later result of his visit was his
Historia Ecclesiastica del scisma del Reyno de Inglaterra (1588–1594), often reprinted, and used in later editions of
Nicholas Sander's
De Origine et Progressu Schismatis Anglicani. On 25 November 1556 he left Belgium and reached
Rome on 3 February 1557, setting out again on 17 October for
Flanders. His sojourn in the
Low Countries was interrupted for five months (November 1558 to March 1559); this period he spent in
London, having been summoned there on account of the sickness of
Mary Tudor, Queen of England, which ended in her death. In 1560 he was made Provincial of the Society of Jesus in
Tuscany, then transferred as Provincial to
Sicily in 1563, again employed in Flanders. The accession of
Everard Mercurian as general of the order brought a great change to Ribadeneira. His health being much impaired, he was ordered to Spain (1571), preferably to Toledo, his native town, to recuperate. This was a dreadful blow to the poor invalid, a remedy worse than the disease. He obeyed, but had been scarcely a year in his native land when he began to importune his general by letter to permit him to return to Italy. These solicitations continued for several years. In 1574 he settled in
Madrid, where he died on 10 September or 22 September 1611. ==Works==