Scheda
Born in Montejo de Salvatierra de Tormes, in the diocese of Salamanca, around 1750, Simon was the son of Ferdinand Rodriguez and Maria Antonia Laso. He was admitted to the Royal Hispanic Major College of San Clemente in Bologna in March 1773 for Canonical Law, with a dissertation "de rebus ecclesiae alienandis vel non" and graduated on June 22 of that year.
In the years 1773-1774 he held in the college the positions of consiliario, celario and secretary, and in 1775 he started teaching Pontifical Law. In 1788 he was appointed rector of the College with the prerogatives and faculties of Visitator and Royal Delegate. During his rectorate he lived through the difficult time of the French invasion, culminated in Napoleon's decree of March 28, 1812, by which the college was suppressed and its assets auctioned off. After the fall of Napoleon's empire, Simon Rodriguez worked to obtain the restitution of what had not been alienated, and in 1815 he was able to recover the palace in Bologna and the library, which, through the efforts of Cardinal Mezzofanti, had not been dispersed but had been merged with the municipal library. Knight of the Order of Charles III and Counselor of the King of Spain, he remained in the office of rector of the College of Spain until his death on December 26, 1821. The brief biographical notes left among the notes of Raffaele Tognetti erroneously report he died an octogenarian , for calculus. According to Tognetti’s notes, Simon Rodriguez was "a gentleman of great consideration, not only for the luminous work he did in a college whose institution is a glory for Bologna and its University, but also for the good studies he conducted as a friend of the famous Ab. Emanuele Daponte, and of his famous Scholar Clotilde Tambroni, both already and buried for some years in this Municipal Cemetery". He left his nephew Francesco, commissioner of the sepulchral monument, who had attended the College in the years 1806-1812, and who had settled in Bologna buying a prestigious building in Via San Mamolo (now Via D'Azeglio, in the corner of Via de' Carbonesi) and marrying the Bolognese Carlotta Zambeccari.
(Traduzione di Luca Cannella, classe 5B - nell'ambito del progetto di Alternanza scuola-lavoro 2020/21 con il Liceo Linguistico Boldrini di Bologna).
