Rizal's Life and Work

1. Rizal’s European
Journey
and Studies
1882-1885

2. The First Voyage to Spain:
Views and Impressions
 May 3, 1882
 23 years old
 Salvadora – vessel
 He drew sketches of the things he saw (the coast
of Manila Bay, the coastline of Palawan and
Borneo and his fellow passengers)
 Singapore – first stopover

3. The First Voyage to Spain: Views and
Impressions
 Djemnah – vessel at Singapore
 Point de Galle and Colombo in Ceylon
 Indian Ocean and landed at Aden
(Yemen)
 Suez Canal
 Port Said in Egypt
 Naples in Italy
 Marseilles – end of the voyage of the
Djemnah

4. The First Voyage to Spain:
Views and Impressions
 Chateau d’ It – the venue of his favorite novel,
Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo
 Rizal left for Spain via railway
 Barcelona – the capital of the Spanish province
of Cataluña and Spain’s second largest city
 Rizal stayed in Barcelona for the duration of
the summer vacation
 Amor Patrio (Love of Country) – nationalistic
essay
 Los Viajes (travels) and Revista de Madrid
(review of Madrid)

5. The University Student in Madrid
 Rizal enrolled in two courses, Medicine
and Philosophy and Letters at the
Universidad Central de Madrid
 He also studied painting and sculpture
and French, German and English at the
Academy of San Carlos
 He also took lessons from a private
instructor who taught him shooting and
fencing at the Hall of Sanz and
Carbonell

6. Romantic Episode with Consuelo Ortiga
 Don Pablo Ortiga y Rey – a Spanish liberal who lived in the
Philippines during the time of Governor General Carlos Ma. De la
Torre
 Consuelo Ortiga – one of the daughters, Rizal gave her flowers, she
reciprocated Rizal’s feelings
 A la Señorita C.O. y R – love poem for Consuelo
 Rizal did not allow the romance to prosper because he was still
engaged to Leonor Rivera and his friend Eduardo de Lete, was also
in love with Consuelo.
 In the summer of 1883, Rizal left Madrid for Paris to forget Consuelo
 Consuelo married de Lete (who later became Rizal’s secret enemy)

7. Meeting with Future Reformists:
The Circulo Hispano-Filipino
 Rizal’s meeting with fellow Filipinos and liberal Spaniards
paved the way for his joining the Circulo Hispano-Filipino
 The group was a social conglomeration and it held informal
programs which included poetry reading and debates
 The members asked him to compose a poem
 He wrote a poem conveying the sentiments of a poet
constrained to provide something would please his listeners
 Me Piden Versos (The Ask Me for Verses)
 Politics became part of the discussion of the group centering
on the need for reforms in the Philippines

8. Entry into the Freemasonry
 Many of the liberal and republican-minded people whom Rizal met and befriended in
Madrid were masons
 Freemasonry – outlawed by the Church because its beliefs are contrary to its
doctrines
 Members were considered sinners and are obliged to retract before they could
receive any of the sacraments
 If they die they were denied Christian burial and were buried in non-Catholic
cemeteries
 According to their outlook, knowledge should be achieved by the light of reason and
the universal brotherhood of men
 Masons attacked the Church for what they believed its promotion of religious
superstition and obscurantism or hiding truth behind the veil of religion
 Government policies which upheld despotism were also attacked
 Dimasalang (ungraspable) – Rizal’s Masonic name
 After he joined, he stopped going to church regularly and began to challenge matters
of faith, preferring to know it by the light of reason and one’s conscience
 His faith the existence of God remained firmly as seen in his writings and letters

9. The Avid Book Collector
 He spared no amount in buying books even from the second- hand bookstores
 The Holy Bible, Lives of the Presidents of the United States from (George
Washington) to (Andrew) Johnson, Complete Works of Voltaire (9 volumes),
Complete Works of C. Bernard (16 volumes), Complete Works of Horace (3
volumes), Ancient Poetry, Works of Thuycidides, The Byzantine Empire, The
Renaissance, Hebrew Grammar, The Characters of La Bruyere, History of the French
Revolution, Eugene Sue’s the Wandering Jew, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s
Cabin, The Works of Alexander Dumas, Louis XIV and his Court, various books on
medicine, philosophy, languages, geography, the arts and sciences
 Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s cabin and Sue’s The Wandering Jew – influenced his
two later novels
 Rizal’s family experienced difficulty financially which Rizal also felt its effect.

10. The Speech That Attracted the Attention
of Reactionary Spaniards in the
Philippines
 June 25, 1884 – Rizal entered a contest in Greek in the University
 Rizal won despite of not having eaten because he was penniless
 He delivered an eloquent speech at a banquet praising Filipino
painters Juan Luna and Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo who won top
prizes at the National Exposition of Fine Arts
 Juan Luna – Spolarium (first prize)
 Hidalgo – Virgenes Cristianas Expuestas al Populacho (Christian
Virgins Exposed to the Populace, second prize)
 Rizal was warned by his mother to stop writing articles that might
offend the friars and other Spanish reactionary and that he should
not fail in his Christian duties and finally she told her son to stop
pursuing studies that might lead to his ruin

11. Completion of Studies in Spain
 June 21, 1884 – Rizal completed his medical studies and was
given the title of Licenciado en Medicina (Licentiate in
Medicine) which would enable him to practice medicine
 Rizal continued studying subjects that would have led to a
Doctorate in Medicine but was not awarded the degree because
of his failure to present the thesis required for graduation and
he has not paid the corresponding fees
 His degree enabled him to practice medicine but does not
enable him to teach.
 He was also able to finish his studies in Philosophy and Letters
(Licentiate in Philosophy and Letters)
 This degree qualified him to serve as professor of humanities in
any Spanish university
 Later, he decided to improve his training in medicine