U.VA. NAMES ITS SPANISH HOUSE IN HONOR OF ALUMNUS
 FERNANDO BOLIVAR, NEPHEW AND ADOPTED SON OF
 SOUTH AMERICAN HERO SIMON BOLIVAR

	CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., Nov. 8 -- The University of Virginia
marked an important but less-well-known piece of its history today,
officially naming its new Spanish House in honor of a noted early
alumnus who represents strong ties between the Americas.
	The University's Board of Visitors approved naming the
Spanish language-and-culture residential house Casa Bolivar, in
honor of Fernando Bolivar, nephew and adopted son of South America's
most famous hero, Simon Bolivar.  Fernando Bolivar was one of the
first students at U.Va., coming here to study in 1827 because he and
his uncle were both admirers of Jefferson and his ideas about
freedom and democracy.  Simon Bolivar, "the Liberator," helped
create independent democratic nations in South America.
	The U.Va. Board resolution cites Fernando Bolivar as "an
early exemplar of the strong and historic ties between the
University and Hispanic America" and the University's new Spanish
House as representing "a continuation and strengthening of those
ties."
	Portraits of Fernando and Simon Bolivar, gifts to the
University from the Venezuelan government in the 1940s, will be
moved from the Spanish department offices to the newly opened Casa
Bolivar at 1408 Jefferson Park Ave.
	Born in 1810 in Caracas, Fernando Bolivar came to the United
States in 1822 to attend Germantown Academy in Germantown, Pa.,
while his famous uncle was fighting to create independent nations in
South America.  Simon Bolivar eventually helped Ecuador, Peru,
Bolivia, Venezuela and Colombia establish their independence from
Spain.  When Fernando's father was killed in the fighting, Simon
Bolivar, who had no children of his own, adopted his nephew and sent
him to the United States to be educated.
	After five years in preparatory school Fernando considered
going to West Point but decided on the newly opened University of
Virginia because he admired Jefferson.  Jefferson died the summer
before the young Bolivar came to register.
	Simon Bolivar sent a letter to the University faculty
detailing how he wanted Fernando to be educated. A typed copy of the
letter, along with other material relating to Bolivar's days here,
is in Alderman's Library's manuscript collection.  Among other aims,
Fernando's education was to include modern languages, "not
neglecting his own," his uncle wrote.
	Also in the Alderman collection is a copy of Fernando
Bolivar's memoir, "Recuerdos y Reminiscencias," published under the
pseudonym "Rivolba" (an anagram of Bolivar) in Paris in 1873.  In it
he describes his days at U.Va.:  "The buildings were exceedingly
beautiful and very well arranged. . . On the 'Lawn' or principal
plaza, which occupied the top of a low ridge, there were about 12
pavilions. . . There was no wall around the university grounds to
keep the students in . . ."
	He notes that his professors were "very eminent men secured
by Jefferson for the express purpose of teaching at his university."
	Before the year was out, Fernando Bolivar was forced to
leave when the commercial house that had been handling his funds
went bankrupt.  James Monroe offered to let Bolivar live in the
brick cottage on the University Grounds where he had his law office
(now part of U.Va.'s Monroe Hill/Brown College), but Fernando
decided he should return to his native Venezuela. 
	He served as personal secretary and confidante to his uncle
until Simon Bolivar died in 1830.  Fernando Bolivar died in 1898 in
Caracas after a distinguished diplomatic career.
	In a recent novel, "The General in His Labyrinth," Nobel
laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez has Fernando Bolivar playing a
significant minor role as his uncle's personal secretary and
confidante.  In the novel about Simon Bolivar's last days, Garcia
Marquez notes that Fernando Bolivar had been a student in
Charlottesville at the University founded by Thomas Jefferson.
###
November 8, 1996
	For additional information about U.Va.'s Casa Bolivar,
contact Alison Weber, chair of the Spanish department, at (804)
924-7159.  Television reporters should call our TV News Office at
(804) 924-7550.