Pedro Balmaceda Toro (1868 – June 1, 1889) was a Chilean writer and journalist, considered the promoter of the Modernismo school in Latin America.

His salons, some of which were held at his private apartments, some at the presidential palace of La Moneda while his father was president, were the most important cultural gathering points of the time.

In 1886, he met Rubén Darío, then a lonely, awkward, poor and unemployed 19-year-old immigrant, at the editorial room of the La Epoca newspaper, where he was a collaborator, and soon both became fast friends.

He introduced Darío to the Parnassian and Symbolist poets in his library: Leconte de Lisle, Catulle Mendes, Gautier, Baudelaire and Verlaine.

After his death, his newspaper articles were collected by Manuel Rodríguez Mendoza into a volume called Studies and Literary Essays.