Gregorio Funes (May 25, 1749 – January 10, 1829), also known as Deán Funes, was an Argentine clergyman, educator, historian, journalist and lawmaker who played a significant role in his nation's early, post-independence history. Biography Early life and the priesthood Funes' parents were Juan José Funes y Ludueña, and María Josefa Bustos de Lara. The Funes family had arrived to Córdoba with the first group of settler led by Jerónimo Luis de Cabrera, and the Bustos family was part of a group of Spanish colonists that left Chile and moved to Mendoza and Córdoba. Born in Córdoba, in what was then the Governorate of the Río de la Plata (a part of the Spanish Empire), Gregorio Funes was raised in privileged circumstances, and enrolled at the College of Monserrat. He studied in cloistered conditions, and shared his formative years with Juan José Castelli or Juan José Paso. Funes was ordained into the priesthood in 1773, and was named head seminarian; he graduated the following year, on August 10. A later dispute with the rector of the University of Córdoba led to Funes' transfer to a minor, Punilla Valley parish. Funes ultimately transferred, without permission from the diocese, to the University of Alcalá de Henares (Spain), in 1779. He returned to South America in 1793, where he was named canon of the Cathedral of Salta, and in 1804 was promoted to dean of the cathedral. Funes was appointed rector of the University of Córdoba in 1807, and quickly implemented a package of reforms and modernization. Established the Departments of Mathematics, Experimental Physics, French Language studies, Music Theory, and Trigonometry, as well as donating a part of his family estate for curricular expansion. His administration replaced much of the university's Franciscan faculty for clergy from the local Diocese. Despite his disapproval of the work of René Descartes, John Locke, and Gottfried Leibniz, for instance, Funes' reforms were sufficiently ambitious to run afoul of the Viceroy of the Río de la Plata, Rafael de Sobremonte. The invasion of Spain by the Emperor Napoleon in 1808, and the capture of King Ferdinand VII led Funes to join Manuel Belgrano and Juan José Castelli as an adherent to Carlotism,a movement in support of crowning Princess Carlota Joaquina of Spain as Queen, which sought to both advance a legitimate monarch, as well as to further the possibility of Independence. The May Revolution Funes was the first