Aniceto Ortega de Villar

Aniceto of the Dolores Luis Gonzaga Ortega of the Villar dog (Tulancingo, Hidalgo, 1825 - 1875), was Mexican doctor, composer and pianist. Although he had a distinguished career as a doctor and surgeon, he is also remembered today for his 1871 Guatemotzin opera, one of the most tempting Mexican operas to use a native theme. Biography

Aniceto Ortega del Villar, studied at the Medical School of Mexico, which he entered on January 12, 1841, obtaining his medical degree on December 30, 1845. He studied obstetrics in France, from 1849. A senior embryologist, he was the first to practice preventive medicine in Mexico on his return from the European Continent in 1851. Lithograph by Dr. Aniceto Ortega del Villar (1825-1875), Mexican physician and musician.

On November 1, 1865, he was appointed by Emperor Maximilian, a member of the Higher Council of Health, created by the Emperor, and on February 1, 1868, he was appointed by Benito Juarez, who did not love him but who recognized his professional capacities, Professor in the School of Obstetrics. On March 8, 1870, he was appointed Director of the Maternity Hospital of Mexico. (Teodomiro MANZANO, "Distinguished Hidalguenses", 1940)

Besides being a doctor, he was an outstanding musician. He founded in the year of 1866 the Mexican Philharmonic Society, converted today in the National Conservatory of Music. As a great composer, he wrote waltzes, polkas, mazurka, as well as the well-known march Zaragoza and one of the first Mexican operas with a national sense called Guatemotzin, based on a historical novel by the writer Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda based on a passage from the history of the conquest of Mexico. Bibliography

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