Juan Ramis

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Juan Ramis y Ramis (1746–1819) was a lawyer, writer and historian from Mahón, Menorca. He is known as the only writer from Menorca who produced neoclassical works in Catalan and for founding the Mahón Society for Culture.

He came from a large family, the eldest of eight children. He studied Latin, arithmetic and languages as a boy, then went to the University of Mallorca to study rhetoric and philosophy, earning a Bachelor of Philosophy in 1765 and later Master and Doctor in Liberal Arts. He studied Civil and Canon Law at the Pontifical University of Avignon, earning his doctorate in 1767. He settled in Mahón, working as a lawyer and holding public positions.

In 1778 he founded the Societat Maonesa de Cultura (Mahón Society for Culture) with Captain Joan Roca i Vinent; it promoted natural and human sciences and translated works by Voltaire, Wieland, and Young.

Ramis's work can be divided into four periods. First, during British rule (roughly 1763–1781), he wrote neoclassical Catalan drama: Lucrècia, Arminda and Constància, and helped run the society. He admired classical authors from Greece and Rome, as well as French and English writers.

Second, from 1783 to 1793, he focused on history. He wrote Resumen topográfico e histórico de Menorca (1784), and other studies on Menorca’s geography, plants, animals and measurements, as well as some plays such as Ègloga de Tirsis i Filis and the tragicomedy Rosaura.

Third, after his wife Joana Montanyès died in 1791 and his mother in 1793, his public duties increased. He served as an advisor to the Royal Heritage (1802), judge of printers and bookstores (1805) and advisor to the Royal Tax Office (1812). He continued writing poetry and burlesques, including Els temps i paratges de Menorca en què és més gustós i saludable el Peix (1811).

Fourth, from 1814 onward he produced many history works: Alquerías de Menorca (1815), Situación de la Isla de Menorca (1816), Varones Ilustres de Menorca (1817), Antigüedades célticas de la isla de Menorca (1818) – the first archaeological treatise on the island in Spain – and Alonsíada and Historia civil y política de Menorca (1819).

Ramis lived his life in Menorca, a place that experienced British rule in parts of his life and where Catalan remained the official language. He helped spread Enlightenment ideas on the island and left a lasting literary and historical legacy about Menorca.