Note 2 — THE COLLEGE OF SAN JOSÉ

The congregation of the Virgin, which was promoted by the visitor, Diego Garcia. It was formed from six students on St. Francis’s day, 1600. So many people soon joined that it became necessary to split the congregation into two parts, one of students and the other of laymen, the latter of which had one hundred members in two years. Their objects were charity and devotion. The first to initiate the congregations of the Virgin in the Jesuit order was Juan de León, a Flemish priest, who established the first in the Roman college in 1563, giving it the title of Anunciada. It was given papal approval in 1564. See Colin’s Labor evangélica, pp. 411–413; and Pastells’s Colin, ii, pp. 243–246. ↑