Details

Subjects:

Spain -- Politics and government -- 1759-1788.
Spain.
Politics and government.
Spain -- History -- Charles III, 1759-1788.
History.
Río de la Plata (Viceroyalty) -- History.
Gibraltar -- History -- Siege, 1779-1783.
Gibraltar.

Form/Genre:

Codices.
Autobiographies (literary works)
Manuscripts, Spanish.
Manuscripts, European.

Language:

Spanish.

Biography/History:

Reformist chief minister of the Supreme Council of State of Spain under King Charles III, and briefly under Charles IV.

Summary:

Autobiographical summary of Floridablanca's role in Spain's major foreign and domestic affairs from the time he became chief minister in 1777 until the ascension of Charles IV to the throne in 1788. Floridablanca sums up his many success as a politician and statesman and defends what his adversaries consider to be his errors. He tells the king that he is not interested in accusing or blaming any one else but rather in defending himself from those who would charge him as if he himself had been the "author of the disgraces" (f. 18v). He covers in some detail the conflict between Spain and Portugal over the territories of the River Plate region in South America and the resulting Treaty of San Ildefonso, which settled the dispute on Oct. 1, 1777; the blockade and siege of British-controlled Gibraltar by allied Spanish and French forces from 1779 to 1783, which ended with the embarrassing defeat of the Spanish and French naval forces and the signing of a peace treaty with Britain; the establishment of the Supreme Council of State in 1787, referred to in the text as the Junta de Estado; the creation of the first Spanish national bank in 1782; and his general opinions of the clergy and their proper place within Spanish society. The anti-revolutionary fever which gripped Spain in the wake of the French Revolution led to the reform-minded Floridablanca's fall from favor and eventual imprisonment in 1792. He was liberated in 1794 under the administration of the new chief minister Manuel de Godoy. Floridablanca's writing is followed by a short postscript (f. 114r-115v) written by Godoy in 1795 in San Ildefonso (Spain), asking the king to allow Floridablanca to live in the town of his choice and to receive his due pension.

Notes:

Ms. codex.
Title from title page (f. 1r).
Foliation: Paper, iii + 116 leaves + ii; [1-115, i]; modern foliation in pencil, upper right recto.
Layout: Written in 22-24 long lines.
Script: Written in a cursive script.
Watermark: Similar to Valls i Subirá, Romaní, 778; unidentified watermark consisting of a circle containing what appears to be a large letter V over an inverted V, with a crown above and wings on each side; unidentified watermarks consisting of the names Giacomo and Quartino; unidentified watermark consisting of what looks like the bottom half of the shield of Catalonia.
Binding: Quarter morocco (Zacour-Hirsch).
Origin: Probably written in Spain after 1795 (f. 115v).

Penn Provenance:

Formerly owned by Henry Charles Lea (inscription, front fly leaf, 1889; bookplate inside upper cover).

Cited in:

Described in Zacour, Norman P. and Hirsch, Rudolf. Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Libraries of the University of Pennsylvania to 1800 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1965), p. 175 (Ms. Lea 135).

Cited as:

UPenn Ms. Codex 1426

Contributor:

Lea, Henry Charles, 1825-1909, former owner.

Contains:

Godoy, Manuel de, príncipe de la Paz, 1767-1851.
Charles IV, King of Spain, 1748-1819, addressee.

OCLC:

311059031