29 Facts About Gregorio Funes

Gregorio Funes, known as Dean Funes, was an Argentine clergyman, educator, historian, journalist and lawmaker who played a significant role in his nation's early, post-independence history.

The Gregorio Funes family had arrived to Cordoba with the first group of settler led by Jeronimo Luis de Cabrera, and the Bustos family was part of a group of Spanish colonists that left Chile and moved to Mendoza and Cordoba.

Gregorio Funes studied in cloistered conditions, and shared his formative years with Juan Jose Castelli or Juan Jose Paso.

Gregorio Funes ultimately transferred, without permission from the diocese, to the University of Alcala de Henares, in 1779.

Gregorio Funes returned to South America in 1793, where he was named canon of the Cathedral of Salta, and in 1804 was promoted to dean of the cathedral.

Gregorio Funes was appointed rector of the University of Cordoba in 1807, and quickly implemented a package of reforms and modernization.

Gregorio Funes's administration replaced much of the university's Franciscan faculty for clergy from the local Diocese.

The invasion of Spain by the Emperor Napoleon in 1808, and the capture of King Ferdinand VII led Gregorio Funes to join Manuel Belgrano and Juan Jose Castelli as an adherent to Carlotism, a movement in support of crowning Princess Carlota Joaquina of Spain as Queen, which sought to both advance a legitimate monarch, as well as to further the possibility of Independence.

Gregorio Funes was the first Cordoba official to support the May Revolution of 1810, and contributed significantly to its success by informing the Argentine government, the Primera Junta, of an alliance between Governor Juan Gutierrez de la Concha and former Viceroy Santiago de Liniers, who was organizing a counter-revolution.

Gregorio Funes himself urged the army to return the captured leaders alive, though these were ultimately executed en route to Buenos Aires.

Gregorio Funes was elected as a representative to the Junta Grande upon its replacement of the Primer Junta regime on December 18,1810.

The inclusion of representatives from the hinterland to the government was not unanimously supported and Gregorio Funes attempted to placate tensions by proposing a system of provincial juntas.

Gregorio Funes directed the Gazeta de Buenos Ayres, the official Junta newsletter, and El Argos de Buenos Aires, the leading business publication, during his tenure, and enacted laws bolstering freedom of the press despite the ongoing conflict with opponents.

Gregorio Funes pressed for direct Junta control the granting of charters, deeming this the most important of the body's jurisdictions.

Gregorio Funes was appointed to replace Saavedra as head of the Junta, which was stripped of executive authority and placed under the aegis of a Triumvirate.

Gregorio Funes attempted to compromise by enacting a Decree of Organic Regulation to more clearly define separation of powers and other considerations.

Gregorio Funes returned to Cordoba, where he authored one of the nation's first history texts, Ensayo de Historia Civil del Paraguay, Buenos Aires y Tucuman.

The congress provoked a revolt late in the year by League of the Free Peoples supporter Jose Gervasio Artigas, and Gregorio Funes accepted an appointment by Supreme Director Juan Martin de Pueyrredon as Governor of Cordoba.

Gregorio Funes later accepted a post in replacement of one of two Cordoba representatives who resigned upon the relocation of the Congress of Tucuman to Buenos Aires in 1817.

Gregorio Funes remained a monarchist and advanced the notion of a constitutional monarchy during a constitutional assembly held in 1819.

Unable to prevail in this proposal, Gregorio Funes nonetheless supported the new constitution, with which he shared a reliance on centralized government.

Gregorio Funes wrote its preamble, as well as the proclamation presented in its support to provincial leaders.

Unitarian forces were defeated at the Battle of Cepeda of 1820, and Gregorio Funes served as the national government's envoy to negotiate the February 23 Treaty of Pilar, upon which the constitution was rescinded.

Gregorio Funes remained in Buenos Aires, and was appointed Trade Representative to Gran Colombia by Governor Martin Rodriguez.

Gregorio Funes became acquainted with President Simon Bolivar during his stay in Bogota, and attempted in vain to persuade Governor Rodriguez to take part in the Congress of Panama, which President Bolivar initially convened for December 1824, and which was, itself, postponed until 1826.

Gregorio Funes returned to assist in Governor Rodriguez's bid for national unity, the General Congress of 1824; the congress ultimately resulted in the Constitution of 1826, and the first centralized government in Argentina.

Gregorio Funes was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1825.

One of his friends, Santiago Spencer Wilde, invited the cleric for a tour of his recently inaugurated Parque Argentino, the first public garden in Buenos Aires; as they walked in the hot southern hemisphere summer, Dean Gregorio Funes collapsed, and died at age 79.

Gregorio Funes was interred at the La Recoleta Cemetery, though his remains were later transferred to the Cordoba Cathedral.