Soldier, born at Quito (Ecuador), 1755, where his father was President of the Royal Audiencia from 1728 to 1737. He selected the military career, and rose to the rank of Brigadier General in 1792, in the Spanish army. He wrote a dictionary, historical and geographical, of the West Indies, in five volumes, for which the work of Father Giovanni Coletti, S.J., "Dizionario del l'America meridionale" (Venice, 1771) was a substantial basis. The work of Alcedo was translated into English by G.A. Thompson in 1812, and that translation is looked upon by many as an improvement, whereas it in fact teems with errors from which the original is relatively free.
ALCEDO, Diccionario geografico-historico de las Indias occidentales (Madrid, 1786-89); THOMPSON, The Geographical and Historical Dictionary of America and the West Indies (London, 1812); BERISTAIN DE SOUZA, Biblioteca hisp.-americana septentrional (Mexico, 1816); MENDIBURU, Diccionario etc. (Lima, 1874).
APA citation. (1907). Antonio de Alcedo. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01272a.htm
MLA citation. "Antonio de Alcedo." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907. <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01272a.htm>.
Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by Thomas M. Barrett. Dedicated to the memory of Antonio de Alcedo.
Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.
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