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Juan Manuel Fernández Pacheco
Juan Manuel Fernández Pacheco | |
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 Portrait of Juan Manuel Fernández Pacheco, Marquis of Villena, held at the Real Academia Española. |
Juan Manuel Fernández Pacheco y Zúñiga, by birth Juan Manuel María de la Aurora Fernández Pacheco Acuña Girón y Portocarrero (Marcilla, Navarre, September 7, 1650 – Madrid, June 29, 1725), was a Grandee of Spain, 8th Marquis of Villena, 8th Duke of Escalona, 8th Count of Xiquena, 12th Count of San Esteban de Gormaz, and 10th Marquis of Moya. He was Viceroy and Captain General of the kingdoms of Navarre, Aragon, Catalonia, Sicily and Naples. A Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, he promoted, founded and directed the Real Academia Española (1713).
Biography
He was born in Marcilla (Navarre) while his father, Diego López Pacheco y Portugal, 7th holder of his titles, was on his way to Pamplona to take office as Viceroy of Navarre, and he was baptized there the following day.[1] He lost his mother when he was only two years old, and his father a year later. His uncle Juan Francisco Pacheco, Bishop of Cuenca, took him in as an orphan and educated him until he turned 14. During those years he had very good teachers, who awakened in him a thirst for knowledge, diligence in study and a taste for acquiring books, especially the humanist from La Mancha Gonzalo Navarro Castellanos, a disciple of Bartolomé Ximénez Patón and formerly tutor of Juan José de Austria.
He continued to cultivate his intellect to such a degree that by the age of 26 he was already hailed by all as one of the most learned men in Spain. After taking part in several battles, he ended up retired in Castile, devoted to study and to the education of his children. In 1713 the King of Spain appointed him his Mayordomo mayor, making him head of his Household, and also of that of his son Louis I during his brief reign, although both monarchs gave him complete freedom to devote himself to his studies, the responsibility being exercised de facto by the Sumiller de Corps, his relative the Count of Altamira.
In the words of Alonso Zamora Vicente, «the life of the man who was to be the first director of the Real Academia Española was eventful and representative. He took part in military expeditions of various kinds (Hungary, Italy). He was appointed Viceroy of Navarre, of Aragon and of Catalonia; while holding this last office, he lost the Battle of Torroella against the French (May 27, 1694). With the arrival of Philip V he declared himself a resolute supporter of the new dynasty. This adherence earned him the appointment as Viceroy of Naples, where, through a turn of fortune half military and half political, he was taken prisoner by the Imperial troops and suffered imprisonment in Gaeta. He was restored to Spain after the victory of Brihuega, in 1711. The King, who held him in great esteem, wished to give him the archiepiscopal mitre of Toledo, but the Marquis declined it. In the end he agreed to be distinguished with the highest palace office, that of Mayordomo mayor (1713), on the condition that he be exempted from continuous attendance to his office and could devote himself to his studies with full intensity».[2]
The Duke of Saint-Simon, who knew him well, wrote of him:
- Escalona, although more commonly called Villena, was virtue, honor, probity, faith, loyalty, valor, piety, even the chivalry of old; [...] with much reading, knowledge, correctness and discernment of mind, without obstinacy but with firmness, very disinterested, always occupied, with a beautiful library and correspondence with scholars in every country of Europe.[3]
He also remarks that he never dressed in the Spanish fashion, but in the French, because he could not bear the golilla collar; he let no one intimidate him, to the point that he once beat the royal favorite himself, Cardinal Alberoni, with his cane, because, even though he was Mayordomo mayor, Alberoni on one occasion did not let him visit the King when the latter fell ill in one of his habitual melancholic crises.[4] Thanks to that exemption from court duties he was able to devote himself to founding, in 1713, the Real Academia Española (RAE), in imitation of the Académie Française and that of Florence, together with several enlightened men (nobles, clergymen and some high officials) who gathered in a tertulia at his house on the Plaza de las Descalzas, following a proposal he made to King Philip V. The regular members of this tertulia were Father Juan de Ferreras, historian and scholar; the poet Gabriel Álvarez de Toledo; Andrés González de Barcia; the trilingual philologist Fray Juan Interián de Ayala; the Jesuit mathematicians and astronomers Bartolomé Alcázar and José Casani; and the royal librarian Antonio Dongo Barnuevo. The Marquis himself had been a member of the Academy of Arcadia in Rome since 1704 and a member of the French Academy of Sciences (he was in fact a novator or pre-Enlightenment figure, and Doctor Diego Mateo Zapata stated in 1716 that he knew "modern philosophy" perfectly). He was elected its provisional director on August 3, 1713, becoming its first director in his own right from October 3, 1714 (the date of the Royal Decree), and perpetual director according to the institution's former statutes. He held this office until his death on June 29, 1725. Charged with the initial organization of the RAE, he promoted the publication of the first Dictionary, as well as the drafting of the work plan for the Diccionario de Autoridades, whose first volume he did not live to see published.[5] His organizational work was so effective that the Diccionario de Autoridades was for a long time the true masterpiece of this institution. The important library he managed to assemble, consisting of 6,997 printed volumes and 172 manuscripts, passed to his heirs, but was dispersed in the 19th century.
Marriage and issue
On September 29, 1674, he married María Josefa de Benavides Silva y Manrique de Lara, daughter of Diego IV de Benavides y de la Cueva, 8th Count of Santisteban del Puerto and 1st Marquis of Solera. Their children were: Mercurio Antonio López Pacheco, 9th Duke of Escalona, 12th Marquis of Aguilar de Campoo, 9th Marquis of Villena, 7th Marquis of la Eliseda, 9th Count of Xiquena, 16th Count of Castañeda and 13th Count of San Esteban de Gormaz; and Marciano Fernández Pacheco, 12th Marquis of Moya.
His son Mercurio Antonio López Pacheco and his two grandsons through him, Juan Pablo and Andrés López Pacheco, were perpetual directors of the RAE between 1726 and 1751, so that the first 40 years of the RAE were directed by the same noble house of Villena-Escalona.
Works
- Two letters (1700) to Louis XIV, in C. Hippeau, Avénement des Bourbons au trone d’Espagne. Correspondance inédite du marquis d’Harcourt, Ambassadeur de France auprès des rois Charles II et Phlippe V, Paris, 1875, pp. 316 and 318–320.
- Memorias para la Historia de España, sacadas de los apuntamientos originales escritos de letra del Exmo. Sr. Don Juan Fernández Pacheco, Marqués de Villena, y existentes en la Biblioteca de la casa (manuscript in the Real Academia de la Historia, Colección Sempere, vol. XVI, fols. 94–108v., shelfmark 9/5218, Olim B-134).
Bibliography
- Soler Salcedo, Juan Miguel (2008). Nobleza Española. Grandeza Inmemorial 1520 (in español). Madrid: Visión Libros. ISBN 978-84-9886-179-2.
- "Relación de las Exequias que la Real Academia Española celebró por el Excelentísimo Señor Don Juan Manuel Fernández Pacheco, Marqués de Villéna, su primer fundador y Director". Publisher: Imprenta de Francisco del Hierro. Madrid. 1725.
References
- ↑ The baptismal record in the archive of the parish of Marcilla, on folio 101, reads: «In the Town of Marcilla on the eighth day of the month of September of the year one thousand six hundred and fifty = I, the Licentiate Domingo Ferriz Moreno, Vicar of the Town of Peralta, baptized in case of necessity a boy who was given the name Juan Manuel María del Aurora, legitimate son of the Most Excellent Lords Don Diego López Pacheco, Lord Marquis of Villena, Duke of Escalona, Count of San Esteban, Marquis of Moya, and of the Most Excellent Lady Doña Juana de Zúñiga, his legitimate wife; his Godfather was Don Gaspar Piñero de Elio, Lord of Elio and deputy of this Kingdom of Navarre; and on the twenty-ninth of the same month and year I applied to him the holy oils and chrism, performing the other ceremonies that the Church commands, with the license of the Lord Bishop of Pamplona, in the chapel of the Palace of the Lord Marquis of Falces, there being also a godfather at this solemnity...»
- ↑ Documento: El Marqués de Villena, la Real Academia Española y sus diccionarios
- ↑ Quoted by Pedro Álvarez de Miranda, Diccionario biográfico de la Real Academia de la Historia
- ↑ Pedro Álvarez de Miranda, op. cit., quoting the Duke of Saint-Simon
- ↑ Juan Manuel Fernández Pacheco, Real Academia Española.
External links
- Álvarez de Miranda, Pedro. "Juan Manuel Fernández Pacheco y Zúñiga". Diccionario Biográfico Español (in español). Real Academia de la Historia.
- History of the Real Academia Española in the Diccionario de Autoridades, vol. I, Madrid, 1726, p. 15
- J.F. de Rivarola y Pineda, Monarquía española, Madrid, 1736, vol. I, p. 221
- "El Marqués de Villena, la Real Academia Española y sus diccionarios", by R. Alvarado Ballester, 1992 (University of Seville repository)
