José Rizal

Explore the life

A life in moments.

Learning, medicine, writing, and public service.

1. 

   June 19, 1861

   Family · Calamba, Laguna

   Beginnings in Calamba

   Rizal was born in Calamba, Laguna. Family and education form the opening chapter of the museum biography.

   The seventh of eleven children of Francisco Mercado and Teodora Alonso, he learned to read from his mother and later studied under Justiniano Aquino Cruz in nearby Biñan before going to Manila in 1872.

   Three days after his birth, on June 22, 1861, he was baptized at the font of the Calamba parish church by Father Rufino Collantes, with Father Pedro Casañas as his godfather. The family farmed land leased from the Dominican estate at Calamba, and their stone house held a library said to number about a thousand volumes.

   That lease later turned against them. When Francisco Mercado challenged rising rents in court, Governor-General Valeriano Weyler sent troops to the town, and the family was evicted from the estate. The house that stands in Calamba today is a reconstruction designed by the architect Juan F. Nakpil, paid for largely by Filipino schoolchildren and inaugurated in 1950. The baptismal font is a national historical landmark.

   “I was born on Wednesday, the nineteenth of June, 1861. It was a few days before the full of the moon.”

   Sources NHCP marker · José Rizal, Calamba Church (baptism) · NHCP marker · Pabinyagan ng Simbahan Katoliko ng Kalamba (national historical landmark, 1976) · NHCP marker · Rizal Shrine, Calamba

   • Rizal on his birth in Kalamba
   • His schooling in Biñan

   See it on the life map

   Museum biography · Rizal’s Own Story of His Life

2. 

   

   1872–1877

   Education · Manila

   A student in Intramuros

   At Ateneo Municipal, Rizal developed the education that preceded his university studies. He later studied at the University of Santo Tomas.

   He enrolled at the Ateneo Municipal in June 1872 under the surname Rizal, as his brother Paciano advised, and finished his Bachelor of Arts with the highest marks in 1877.

   Father Magín Fernando, the Jesuit in charge, at first turned the eleven-year-old away because he had come late and looked small and frail; Manuel Xerez Burgos, nephew of the executed Father José Burgos, spoke for him. The Jesuits divided each class into rival “empires,” Roman and Greek, and within a month Rizal rose from the bottom of the line to “Emperor.”

   Alongside his arts course he trained as a land surveyor, though the license was withheld until he turned twenty-one. He also carved: a wooden Sacred Heart he made as a schoolboy hung on a dormitory door for nearly twenty years. The school stood on the site of the old Escuela Pía in Intramuros, which the Jesuits had renamed Ateneo Municipal in 1865; that building burned in 1932.

   “I was put at the end of the line. I could scarcely speak Spanish, but I already understood it.”

   Sources Rizal’s Own Story of His Life (Craig), ch. 5, “A Student in Manila” · Austin Craig, Lineage, Life and Labors of José Rizal (1913) · NHCP marker · Ateneo de Manila (Intramuros site)

   • Rizal on his student days in Manila
   • School-days and first impressions

   See it on the life map

   Intramuros Administration · Education · Russell & Rodriguez · The Hero of the Filipinos

3. 

   

   1882–1884

   Medicine · Madrid, Spain

   Medical studies in Madrid

   Rizal continued his studies at Universidad Central de Madrid and earned his Licentiate in Medicine in 1884. This degree preceded his specialist training in ophthalmology.

   He sailed for Spain in May 1882 and earned his licentiate in medicine from the Universidad Central de Madrid in 1884, adding a licentiate in philosophy and letters in 1885. In Madrid he began writing Noli me tángere.

   He left Manila secretly on May 3, 1882, on a cousin’s passport and with money from his brother Paciano. When his absence was noticed, his father had to prove he had known nothing of the plan to keep the family’s lease. In June 1884, with money from home late again, Rizal wrote in his diary that he was hungry, with nothing to eat.

   That same month he gave the principal toast at a Madrid banquet honoring the painters Juan Luna and Félix Resurrección Hidalgo, whose Spoliarium and Vírgenes cristianas expuestas al populacho had won gold and silver medals at the national fine arts exhibition. He later completed a doctoral thesis but never received the degree, because he could not return to Madrid to present it in person.

   Sources Rizal’s Own Story of His Life (Craig), chronology, 1882 · Padilla, Philippine Journal of Ophthalmology, 2011 (diary, doctorate) · NHCP · Cielo Reyno, “When the Filipino First Proved Himself to the World” (2012)

   • Voices of prophecy: Rizal in Spain

   See it on the life map

   Philippine Journal of Ophthalmology · Medical training · Russell & Rodriguez · The Hero of the Filipinos

4. 

   

   1885–1886

   Medicine · Paris, France

   Eye surgery in Paris

   Working with Louis de Wecker, Rizal gained clinical and surgical experience in ophthalmology. His training connects the European journey with his work as a physician.

   He trained in the clinic of the ophthalmologist Louis de Wecker, gaining the surgical skills he hoped would restore his mother’s failing sight.

   He assisted in Dr. Louis de Wecker’s clinic for about four months, from November 1885 to February 1886. De Wecker was among the most inventive eye surgeons of his day, and his iris scissors are still in use. In a letter home, Rizal reported that 50 to 100 patients came to the clinic daily, with as many as ten major operations on some days.

   Paris also gave him the company of the painter Juan Luna and the exiled Pardo de Tavera family. Rizal posed as the Boholano chief Sikatuna in Luna’s El pacto de sangre (The Blood Compact), with Trinidad Pardo de Tavera as Legazpi. According to his early biographer Austin Craig, about a quarter of Noli me tángere was written in Paris.

   Sources Padilla, Philippine Journal of Ophthalmology, 2011 (de Wecker, Rizal’s letter) · CCP Encyclopedia of Philippine Art · El Pacto de Sangre · Austin Craig, Lineage, Life and Labors of José Rizal (1913), Paris

   • A chronology of Rizal’s life

   See it on the life map

   Philippine Journal of Ophthalmology · Paris · Russell & Rodriguez · The Hero of the Filipinos

5. 

   

   1886

   Medicine · Heidelberg, Germany

   Ophthalmology in Heidelberg

   Rizal trained with Otto Becker in Heidelberg, extending his experience in examining eyes and diagnosing eye conditions.

   At the university eye clinic under Otto Becker he continued his specialty training, and in April 1886 he wrote the poem “A las flores de Heidelberg”.

   Otto Becker was a pioneer of ophthalmic pathology who had collected more than 1,800 pathological specimens. Where Paris had taught Rizal surgery, Heidelberg trained him in examination and diagnosis. Lacking a passport, he could attend lectures but could not formally matriculate, and he was in the city for the university’s five-hundredth anniversary in 1886.

   From late April to late June 1886 he lodged with the Protestant pastor Karl Ullmer in nearby Wilhelmsfeld. That July, from Heidelberg, he wrote his first letter to the Austrian scholar Ferdinand Blumentritt, beginning a friendship that lasted the rest of his life. Wilhelmsfeld renamed the street in front of the vicarage Rizalstraße in 1964, and its Rizal Park holds a statue of him.

   Sources Padilla, Philippine Journal of Ophthalmology, 2011 (Becker, Rizal’s letter) · Austin Craig, Lineage, Life and Labors of José Rizal (1913), Heidelberg · Philippine Embassy Berlin, “Retracing Rizal’s Journey through Germany” (2017)

   • A chronology of Rizal’s life

   See it on the life map

   Philippine Journal of Ophthalmology · Heidelberg · Russell & Rodriguez · The Hero of the Filipinos

6. 

   

   1887

   Writing · Berlin, Germany

   Noli Me Tangere reaches print

   Published in Berlin, Rizal’s first novel examined Philippine society under Spanish colonial rule. The book connects his writing with the reform movement.

   Two thousand copies were printed in March 1887, paid for with a loan from his friend Máximo Viola. The novel’s portrait of colonial abuses made it banned reading in the Philippines.

   Rizal finished the manuscript in Berlin in February 1887. The Latin title, “touch me not,” comes from the Gospel of John, and his dedication to his country likens its condition to a cancer so sensitive that the slightest touch inflames it. One of the first copies went to his friend Ferdinand Blumentritt, who feared the book would bring Rizal trouble.

   It did. Copies sent to friends in Europe were carried into the Philippines, where the friars denounced the novel and readers passed it on in secret. Rizal came home in August 1887 into that storm. Since 1956, Republic Act No. 1425, the Rizal Law, has required Philippine schools, colleges and universities to teach his life and works, especially both novels.

   “Recorded in the history of human sufferings is a cancer of so malignant a character that the least touch irritates it and awakens in it the sharpest pains.”

   Sources Austin Craig, Rizal’s Own Story / chronology (completion in Berlin, February 1887) · Padilla, Philippine Journal of Ophthalmology, 2011 (Blumentritt, circulation, return) · Official Gazette · Republic Act No. 1425 (1956)

   • Read Noli me tángere (English)
   • Leer en español

   See it on the life map

   Intramuros Administration · The novels · Russell & Rodriguez · The Hero of the Filipinos

7. 

   

   1891

   Writing · Ghent, Belgium

   El Filibusterismo follows

   Rizal’s second novel was published in Ghent. Read alongside Noli Me Tangere, it opens another perspective on injustice and social change.

   Printed in September 1891 with help from Valentín Ventura, the novel is dedicated to Fathers Gómez, Burgos and Zamora, the priests executed in 1872.

   Rizal began the sequel in October 1887, during his visit home, and finished it in Belgium. The title page reads “Gent: Boekdrukkerij F. Meyer-Van Loo.” While he wrote, his family was driven from their Calamba lands, and in one chapter he breaks off the story of the dispossessed farmer Cabesang Tales to address the people of Calamba directly.

   Darker than the Noli, the novel follows Simoun, a jeweler secretly plotting revolution. The Madrid paper El Nuevo Régimen printed extracts in October 1891, but not a line was published in the Philippines until 1900. The National Library of the Philippines keeps the manuscripts of both novels, declared National Cultural Treasures in 2024.

   “The Church, by refusing to degrade you, has placed in doubt the crime that has been imputed to you”

   Sources Austin Craig, Lineage, Life and Labors of José Rizal (1913), Ghent · Russell & Rodriguez, The Hero of the Filipinos (1923), ch. on Ghent and note 118 (imprint, publication history) · Rizal, The Reign of Greed (Derbyshire translation)

   • Read El filibusterismo (English)
   • Leer en español

   See it on the life map

   Intramuros Administration · The novels · Russell & Rodriguez · The Hero of the Filipinos

8. 

   

   July 3, 1892

   Public life · Tondo, Manila

   La Liga Filipina

   Rizal founded La Liga Filipina, an association supporting unity, education, agriculture, commerce, and social reform.

   The league met at a house on Ilaya Street in Tondo. Days later, on July 6, Rizal was arrested and then deported to Dapitan, and the league soon gave way to the Katipunan.

   Rizal had drafted the league’s statutes in Hong Kong at the urging of his friend José María Basa. The founding meeting took place in the house of Doroteo Ongjunco, where those present chose Ambrosio Salvador as president. Andrés Bonifacio was among the members. Questioned later, Rizal described the league’s aim as uniting the country’s people to foster commerce through a kind of cooperative association.

   After his deportation, Domingo Franco, Bonifacio, Apolinario Mabini and others revived the league in April 1893, but it dissolved that October. Four years later the prosecution at Rizal’s court-martial made the short-lived league a central charge, calling it an illegal association. The NHCP marker stands at Plaza Liga Filipina, at Raja Matanda and Ilaya streets in Tondo.

   Sources W. E. Retana, Vida y escritos del Dr. José Rizal (1907), sexta época II (testimonies and Rizal’s interrogation) · W. E. Retana, Vida y escritos del Dr. José Rizal (1907), sexta época III (prosecutor’s charges) · NHCP marker · La Liga Filipina

   • Rizal’s essay The Philippines a Century Hence

   NHCP · La Liga Filipina marker · NHCP · Historic sites registry

9. 

   

   1893–1896

   Community · Dapitan, Mindanao

   Life at Talisay

   During his exile, Rizal lived at Talisay. His work in Dapitan included farming and a waterworks project, extending his interests beyond the novels.

   He opened a clinic and a school for local boys, built a water system for the town, and collected specimens for European museums; several species were later named for him. In 1895 he met Josephine Bracken there.

   Rizal reached Dapitan on the evening of July 17, 1892, and was handed over with his papers to the commandant, Captain Ricardo Carnicero, who signed for him as if for cargo. The two became friends. With Carnicero and a Spanish exile, Rizal shared a winning government lottery ticket, a welcome windfall after his family’s losses at Calamba. He moved to his land at Talisay in March 1893.

   His former Ateneo teacher, the Jesuit Francisco Sánchez, helped him survey the levels for the town’s water system. The relief map of Mindanao that Rizal laid out in front of St. James Church still survives. In mid-1896 the Katipunan sent Pío Valenzuela, posing as a doctor escorting a blind patient, to seek his support for an uprising. Rizal refused.

   “My life now is quiet, peaceful, retired and without glory, but I think it is useful too.”

   Sources Austin Craig, Lineage, Life and Labors of José Rizal (1913), Dapitan (receipt, lottery, Sánchez, Valenzuela) · Dapitan City Government · Tourism (arrival, Casa Real, relief map) · NHCP marker · Talisay house replica (March 1893 – July 31, 1896)

   • Rizal on his deportation to Dapitan
   • The exile of Dapitan

   See it on the life map

   NHCP · Talisay house marker · Rizal’s Own Story of His Life

10. 

    Carlos “Botong” V. Francisco (1912–1969), National Artist for Painting (1973). His mural of Rizal’s execution at Bagumbayan was painted in 1960 for the Rizal Shrine at Fort Santiago.

    

    November–December 1896

    Final days · Manila

    Fort Santiago and the final farewell

    Imprisoned at Fort Santiago, Rizal wrote the poem later known as Mi Último Adiós. He was executed at Bagumbayan on December 30, 1896.

    Arrested on his way to serve as a volunteer doctor in Cuba, he was court-martialed on December 26. He hid the poem in an alcohol stove that he gave to his family on the eve of his execution.

    He left Dapitan at the end of July 1896 and was waiting aboard a cruiser in Manila Bay when the revolution broke out. Arrested at sea after his steamer left Port Said, he was held in Barcelona’s Montjuich Castle and shipped back to Fort Santiago. At trial he could choose a defender only from a list of army officers; Lieutenant Luis Taviel de Andrade risked his standing to defend him.

    On December 30 he walked under guard from Fort Santiago to Bagumbayan. A Spanish army doctor found his pulse steady. Refused permission to face the firing squad, he turned as the volley struck and fell face upward. Buried secretly at Paco, his remains were laid beneath the Rizal Monument in 1912. December 30 is observed as Rizal Day.

    “Adios, Patria adorada, region del sol querida, / Perla del Mar de Oriente, nuestro perdido Eden!”

    Sources Rizal’s Own Story of His Life (Craig), chronology, 1896 · Austin Craig, Lineage, Life and Labors of José Rizal (1913), trial and execution · NHCP marker · José Rizal, Paco Cemetery

    • Read Mi último adiós
    • “I came from martyrdom unto this peace”

    See it on the life map

    Intramuros Administration · Final days · Russell & Rodriguez · The Hero of the Filipinos