1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Milá y Fontanals, Manuel

MILÁ Y FONTANALS, MANUEL (1818–1884), Spanish scholar, born at Villafranca del Panadés, near Barcelona, on the 4th of May 1818, was educated first at Barcelona, and afterwards at the university of Cervera. In 1845 he became professor of literature at the university of Barcelona, and held this post till his death at Villafranca del Panadés on the 16th of July 1884. The type of the scholarly recluse, Milá y Fontanals was almost unknown outside the walls of the university till 1859, when he was appointed president of the juegos florales at Barcelona. On the publication of his treatise, De Los trovadores en España (1866), his merits became more generally recognized, and his monograph, De La poesía heróico-popular castellana (1873) revealed him to foreign scholars as a master of scientific method.