[158] The acquisition of cultura required a lengthy apprenticeship, a training designed to extirpate the "ignorance" characterizing all human beings at infancy. Thus education could scarcely be limited to formal indoctrination in the liberal arts. Rather, the patrician appropriated "culture" as a pattern after which he modelled all aspects of behavior. This was nowhere made more apparent than in the various handbooks offering crash courses in gentility and politesse to those anxious to imitate the manners of "true nobility." The most widely read of these manuals was Lucas Gracián Dantisco's The Spanish Galateo, first published in Tarragona in 1593. In the preface to this adaptation of Delia Casa's treatise, the author flatly stated his purpose: to "elevate" the reader to a higher level of prudence, discretion, and courtesy. ⁽¹⁾

Books of manners did much to diffuse the values and comportment of the nobility among members of a wider reading public. The significance of these more informal means of disseminating[159] notions of aristocratic selfhood should not be underestimated. ⁽²⁾ Nevertheless, institutions of communication and sociability bore the brunt of the task of instilling elite ideals and behavior. Having examined the political associations of the Barcelona ruling class, we can now shift our focus to the formal structures charged with reproducing aristocratic identity--the Jesuit collegium, and the "Academy of the Distrustful."

Little is known of the history of primary and secondary education in early modern Barcelona. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, private "masters of reading and writing" shouldered most of the burden of teaching, offering instruction in the basic skills of literacy and arithmetic. ⁽³⁾The cathedral chapter and several local monasteries also provided some limited elementary education. The city Council subsidized only one official pedagogue, a mestre de minyons who taught reading and writing to poor children under the portico of the university building. ⁽⁴⁾ Prior to the seventeenth century, in short, most pre-university instruction lay in the hands of private initiative, ranging from lessons taught for pay by impoverished schoolmasters to small circles where working-class women learned to read while spinning and sewing. ⁽⁵⁾

Barcelona's educational offerings expanded significantly in [160] the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. During these years local religious orders organized a variety of schools, each with its own permanent teaching staff. At first, the new, more dynamic orders of the Counter-Reformation took the lead in these foundations. Most notable was the Jesuit "College of Bethlehem," discussed at length below. Also of importance was the episcopal seminary, established by bishop Joan Dimas Loris in 1593 in fulfillment of the pedagogical initiatives of the Council of Trent. In the later seventeenth century, moreover, the traditional religious orders made a concerted effort to catch up. In 1643, the Mercedarians founded the College of Saint Peter Nolasco; in 1652, the Franciscans established the College of Saint Bonaven-ture in their monastery on the Carrer Ample. Not to be outdone, the Dominican order inaugurated its College of Saints Vincent Ferrer and Raymond Penyafort in 1668. By the mid-eighteenth century, Barcelona housed at least twelve monastic colegios, supplemented by a variety of smaller, more informal schools. ⁽⁶⁾

Members of the traditional aristocracy often received primary and secondary instruction in more distant institutions like the famed Escalonia or choir-school of the monastery of Montserrat. This practice--resembling study at the prestigious colegios mayores of Castilian universities--was limited on the whole to titled noble families like the Requesens, Erill, Monteada, and Queralt. ⁽⁷⁾Prior to the mid-seventeenth century, private tutors taught most aristocrats at home. Perhaps the most famous preceptor was Diego de Gurrea. In 1627 this Aragonese theologian--himself from a noble family--dedicated a pedagogic treatise entitled The Art of Teaching Sons of Princes and Nobles to his most illustrious pupil, D. Luis Fernández Ramón Folch de Cardona [161] , heir to the family title. ⁽⁸⁾ Significantly, as late as the closing years of the century the architectural plan for the new urban palace of the powerful Sentmenat family included a "teacher's room" alongside the children's quarters. ⁽⁹⁾

Most local patricians apparently combined private tutorials with instruction at formal institutions. Some of our most reliable information on the history of secondary schooling in Barcelona comes from the notes that the future lawyer D. Josep de Potau took from 1700 to 1704. Potau, born in 1685 to a noted judge and a merchant's daughter, probably obtained his early instruction from private tutors at home. He began his formal schooling at the Jesuit collegium at the age of ten. After remaining there for five years, he completed its philosophy course and took final examinations. His secondary education now over, Potau undertook further study in mathematics with a "teacher of handwriting and accounting." At the same time he commenced lessons in dancing and "fencing in the Italian style." ⁽¹⁰⁾

What most distinguished the education of Potau from that of earlier aristocrats like Cardona was the time spent at the city's leading secondary school, the Jesuit Col.legi de Cordelles. In fact, by the mid-seventeenth century, noble education in Barcelona had become nearly synonymous with this institution. ⁽¹¹⁾ The school derived its name from two contiguous establishments on the Rambla: the Jesuit "College" of Bethlehem, and the Collegium of Holy Mary and Saint James. Jaume de Cordelles, a local cathedral canon, instituted the latter through a private bequest, and personally drew up its first statutes in 1572. Instruction at the Col.legi de Cordelles was originally limited to relatives of its patron. However, his heirs chose not to maintain the foundation [162]. ⁽¹²⁾ In 1635, D. Alexandre de Cordelles transferred control over the school to the Jesuits, who in 1662 joined it to their own College of Bethlehem. After the suppression of Barcelona's university in 1714--one of the many measures of reprisal taken against the city by the new Bourbon administration--the Col.legi became the leading educational institution in the city, and the only one empowered to teach advanced courses in grammar and philosophy. ⁽¹³⁾ The Jesuits controlled the school until their expulsion in 1767. In that year it passed into the hands of the local seminary and remained under episcopal control until the nineteenth century.

The Society originally established the collegium of Bethlehem in 1544 to provide its novices with primary instruction. Soon thereafter, however, the order began to admit external lay students. In 1576 the school reported the enrollment of at least 140 outsiders; by the end of the century, their number had increased to 160. ⁽¹⁴⁾ The dramatic growth of the collegium encouraged the Jesuits to expand its offerings to secondary teaching as well. Annual reports to their superiors in Rome soon boasted of a string of successes, like the impressive fete of 1616 "attended by learned nobles and the city magistrates."⁽¹⁵⁾The brief lull experienced during the revolutionary decade of the 16405--the Col.legi housed only 50 students in 1647--served merely as prelude to even greater splendor. The neo-foral period inaugurated the Barcelona Jesuits' true predominance within education. The academic ceremonies staged by the collegium symbolized its expanding role in local schooling. The first reference to such "[163] literary exercises" dates to Philip II's 1585 visit to Barcelona, when the Bethlehem students recited for the king "poetical compositions" and scholastic disputae. ⁽¹⁶⁾ Similar exercises were staged annually, beginning in the early 1660's. At their conclusion, the college awarded prizes to student eulogies of the school's patrons, which were then published and distributed to a wider audience. ⁽¹⁷⁾

Another token of the Jesuits' increasing importance in local instruction was the growing visibility of its alumni association. The order established Barcelona's Marian Congregation in 1579 as a means of drumming up support among the urban clergy and other "leading citizens." ⁽¹⁸⁾By the 1630's, the brotherhood had expanded to include both matriculated students and former graduates. The Congregation met at least once a year, centering its festivities around the vigil of the Immaculate Conception. As in the case of the Cordelles orations, the published descriptions and texts of sermons preached at these fêtes did much to diffuse the prestige of Jesuit education throughout the city. The association also constituted one of the more important institutions of sociability within the local ruling class.

The Jesuit school's expansion in size and importance provoked deep resentment among the more established institutions of education in Barcelona. The 1660's witnessed a bitter dispute between the Jesuits and the local university over the Collegium's right to confer advanced degrees. Following the exchange of numerous pamphlets, theological tracts, and legal briefs, a royal decree of 1662 resolved the disagreement by ordering the university to award Cordelles students degrees without their having [164] undergone the minimum three years of study. ⁽¹⁹⁾ While the Dominican-dominated university accepted the decision with no little grumbling, from this point onward the Jesuits exercised undisputed control over elite education in Barcelona.

The absence of surviving documentation frustrates precise identification of the social background of Cordelles students. Contemporary references to the school without exception emphasize the aristocratic character of its student body. Writers of the period frequently referred to it as the "Royal and Imperial College of Nobles," in clear imitation of the academy established by the same order in seventeenth-century Madrid. ⁽²⁰⁾ It is indeed highly probable that aristocratic youths no longer receiving elementary instruction from tutors at home enrolled in the Col.legi. The cost of matriculation--annual fees totalled £85 in 1662, and £100 a century later--certainly prevented most commoners from studying there. ⁽²¹⁾ Nevertheless, despite the prominence of nobles within this institution, we should not assume that the student body was composed exclusively of aristocrats. A list of pupils taking part in public exercises in rhetoric and grammar in 1700 reveals the presence of a sizeable minority of commoners. Of the 35 students mentioned, 8 were nobles. At least 12 were offspring of gentry and honored citizen families, while the remaining 15 hailed from non-noble and gaudint backgrounds. ⁽²²⁾ The representation of the latter group--composed largely of sons of lawyers-- points to the way in which study at the Col.legi served as a means of social promotion for upwardly mobile professionals. Even more significant, however, was its function as an institutional venue for the symbiosis of civic oligarchy and established aristocracy.

[165] It is somewhat easier to identify what was taught at the Collegium, in part because its curriculum apparently differed little from that of other Jesuit schools, and partly thanks to the survival of several revealing documents. ⁽²³⁾ Of the latter, the most important by far were the Potau notebooks and the rhetorical orations in praise of the school published beginning in the mid-seventeenth century. These sources convey the image of an education oriented not toward any specific professional preparation, but rather toward the diffusion of a general model of gentlemanly knowledge and behavior. The relentless instruction in Latin (and to a lesser extent in Castilian), rather than the vernacular, and the emphasis placed on exercises in theatre, dance, and music were calculated to endow the nobility with a veneer of adornment and studied refinement. Advertisements for the college baldly prized crianza, or upbringing, over estudio, or devotion to study. In the words of a 1763 prospectus, the Cordelles academy was above all a "school for virtue, discipline (policía), and letters," educating young nobles "to the greater glory of God and the utility of the State." ⁽²⁴⁾

A pronounced environmental psychology underlay the Jesuits' strenuous cultivation of artifice and rhetorical effect. This epistemological point of departure defined education as an acquisitive process whereby children passed from an initial state of total ignorance to the final condition of "erudite, ingenious, subtle, and learned." Josep Sans's succinct paraphrase of Seneca-- "human understanding is a barren field, where God casts the seeds of all knowledge so that it may grow and be fruitful through study and cultura"--exemplified the equation of primeval human nature with unqualified ignorance.⁽²⁵⁾Adaptation of [166] the theory of the mind as tabula rasa proved a commonplace of local educational doctrine. Lluís Valencià's view of his mission as a professor--"the teacher frees the student from natural servitude and delivers him from ignorance"--found echo in numerous affirmations of the "congenital ignorance" of children. ⁽²⁶⁾As noted above, such an approach naturally encouraged belief in the power of education to transform individuals. This widely held opinion confirmed the view of both early modern pedagogues and their students that a proper education could do much to compensate for the stigma of low birth. Not surprisingly, education came to be seen as the vehicle of upward social mobility par excellence. The acquisition through schooling of crianza, or the good upbringing deemed a necessary quality of the nobility, served to mask the disadvantages of commoner background. ⁽²⁷⁾

Care was taken not to place excessive emphasis on the "improving" character of education, lest it take on overly democratic overtones--hence the consistent, almost obsessive, association of education with the nobility. D. Míquel de Calderó's speech to the "wise and noble" Marian Congregation offered a typical panegyric of the "triumph of nobility and knowledge" proferred by the Col.legi. The distinguished judge drew upon the entire stock of symbols employed in these stereotyped orations in his account of the ascent up Mount Parnassus, with its gallery of "noble exemplars" seeking to imitate the "flight" of the "Imperial Eagle ... to the resplendent sphere of the Sun." Not to be deterred by the examples of Phaeton and Icarus, and moved by the "noble ardor" and heroic exploits of other members of the Congregation, Calderó mastered his fear and joined in the collective quest for knowledge and virtue. The uphill struggle to the lofty heights of Parnassus; glimpses of the majestic eagle soaring above all earthly prominences; the inability of previous failures to discourage his making the journey; above all, the central role played [167] by the sun's light in symbolizing the final goal of knowledge and accomplished virtus--all these topoi formed part of the hackneyed imagery repeatedly drawn on to depict and inspire the experience of new generations of students. ⁽²⁸⁾

Perhaps the most popular symbol designed to evoke the pupil's admiration was that of the "Erudite Hercules." One could hardly imagine a more vivid tale for emulation than the history of this singularly laborious hero, which ranged from the realistic experience of doubt prior to choosing Virtue over Pleasure to repeated episodes of "arduous enterprise," the overcoming of obstacles, and endless ascents up mountains. Hercules' death through immolation also contained strong christological overtones, and encouraged reference to the sunbird the Phoenix, a favored symbol in late-seventeenth-century Catalonia. Above all, Hercules provided a model for the superiority of eloquence over physical strength, a point Alciati had previously made in his highly influential emblem book. Contemporary sources like the eighteenth-century commonplace book The Twelve Labors of the Erudite Hercules echoed the theme of the "strength of Eloquence." The nascent aristocratic Academy of Barcelona also enthusiastically referred in its works to this titan among the "heroes of virtue." ⁽²⁹⁾

A glance at texts like D. Josep Faust de Potau's Cordelles oration of 1696 reveals yet another dimension of the world-view propagated in local elite schooling: the overwhelming emphasis placed on education as an instrument defining class boundaries. Beginning in the fourth strophe, one finds a highly self-conscious statement of the different response of upper and lower classes to the challenge of knowledge and virtue:

The goal of class separation also encouraged the conscious adoption of a visibly elite "style" of comportment. "Mannerly distinction" centered around a diametrical opposition between elite behavior based on the concepts of "gravity" and "good taste," and popular comportment associated with the comic, material, and "indecent." ⁽³¹⁾ Contemporary texts frankly commended the functional value of elite schooling in distinguishing "high" from "low." Statements of educational intent placed strong emphasis on isolation, separation, and avoidance of "mixture" with others. Such writings habitually opposed noble "courtesy" to the "rude," "unpolished," and "plebeian." Stringent definitions of [169] table manners warned against the "suggestions of vileness" inherent in gluttony. Recreational habits also exposed "good" or "bad upbringing": "decency" and "quiet behavior" indicated noble birth, while passion and violence revealed baxeza, or lowly origins. ⁽³²⁾ In short, elite education placed unrelenting emphasis on the power of knowledge and comportment to define--and distinguish--nobility. As a result, the cultivation of "external representation" formed an integral part of the socialization of noble youth.

One can obtain a firmer grasp of the underlying principles of elite education by contrasting the Jesuit col.legi with another leading elementary school in Barcelona, the episcopal seminarium. From its beginning in the 1590's, the seminary enjoyed close ties with the local university and the Dominican order. Inadequate financing obliged the school to matriculate few students during the seventeenth century. However, it expanded rapidly beginning in the early eighteenth century, and by 1736 boasted an enrollment of 42 pupils. ⁽³³⁾ Fundamental differences marked the social backgrounds of the two bodies of students. The list of seminary students in 1737 included only one "Don," whereas all 35 Cordelles matriculants in 1762 boasted that honorific distinction. ⁽³⁴⁾The subject matter taught in the seminary also reflected the lower social standing of its clientele. Its ordinances show far less concern for the politesse, etiquette, and social separation prevailing at the Jesuit school. Its curriculum also reveals stronger resistance to the teaching of physical science, in contrast with the Jesuits' well-known fondness for mathematics. ⁽³⁵⁾

Toward the mid-eighteenth century a reaction set in against [170] the sort of education offered at elite institutions like the Col.legi de Cordelles. The growing unpopularity of the Jesuits accounted in part for the upsurge in criticism. Moreover, the aims and content of elite education itself came under increasing fire from those critical of its obsessive superficiality. The famed jurist and rector of the University of Cervera, Josep Finestres--himself a Jesuit--dismissed the Col.legi's offerings as "mere confusions and grammatical idiocies." ⁽³⁶⁾ His harsh strictures echoed the complaints of earlier humanists like Pedro Simón Abril, who attacked the abstract and non-utilitarian character of elite schooling. ⁽³⁷⁾ Popular dialogues also lampooned the mannered learning and Scholastic subtleties of local col.legials. The Visit of Gabriel Noodle to Francis Rice of 1738 satirized the feud between Jesuits and Dominicans, along with the artificial rhetoric and vapid style characterizing both factions. ⁽³⁸⁾ Yet in a certain sense these criticisms missed the point. After all, the very intent of upper-class education was to produce these effects. The inflated rhetorical style, the studied cultivation of latinate erudition and esoteric enigmata--these constituted the deliberate ends of elite schooling. ⁽³⁹⁾ The shared experience of schooling endowed the patriciate with a common sense of identity. Such elaborate if abstract preparation also provided a clear test of membership in the local ruling class. As the theologian Josep Romaguera noted in his emblem book of 1681, the true noble could "persuade through external evidence his greatness of heart." ⁽⁴⁰⁾ It was a lesson both teachers and students learned exceedingly well.

On June 3, 1700, sixteen of the "most noble and erudite Catalans" gathered in the magnificient library of the Dalmases palace on the Carrer de Monteada to inaugurate the first amateur academy in the city's history. The constitution unanimously approved that day specified their purpose. As "persons in whom Erudition marches side by side with Nobility," they pledged themselves to the "most arduous undertakings" of "learning" and other "high matters." After some discussion, the members chose the uncharacteristically modest name of the Academy of the Desconfiats--literally the "unconfident" or "distrustful." They also adopted for their emblem an allegory of a shipwreck huddled beneath the motto tuta quia diffidens--"safe through distrust" (see Illustration 4). The members finally agreed to hold meetings every two weeks to recite speeches on prearranged themes (assumptos), and to perform musical compositions. The first regular session of the Academy took place a week later. At least ten meetings followed between June and January of the succeeding year. Since the minutes of most sessions after early 1701 are missing, the bulk of our knowledge of the Academy's activities derives from records of the 1700 meetings and the published works of its members. ⁽⁴¹⁾

In a strict sense, the Desconfiats sodality was not the first academy founded in Barcelona. The Academia of Saint Thomas Aquinas, established during the 1660's, united local university professors and theologians in a Dominican attempt to rival the prominent Marian Congregation of the Jesuit Cordelles school. ⁽⁴²⁾

[172] 

[173] This association was composed almost exclusively of professional academics and served merely as an adjunct to regular university teaching. It offered none of the opportunities for amateur literary exposition so conspicuous a feature of the Desconfiáis group. More importantly, its literal "academicism" was far removed from the effortless elitism of true dilettantes. Only the Desconfiats could mimic the wedding of nobility and learning increasingly common among elite sodalities throughout late-seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe.

The founders of the aristocratic Academia did not adopt any local institution as their model. Rather, they turned for inspiration to amateur patrician associations in France and especially Italy. The preface to the collective anthology Royal Dirges of 1701 noted that "among all other nations, that which has most distinguished itself in this tasteful sort of studies has been Italy, the most fertile mother of clever and industrious Geniuses, for in almost all her important provinces one finds a variety of Academies." ⁽⁴³⁾ The editor, D. Joan de Amat i Planella, listed some fifty academies serving as models for the Barcelona institution. He predictably included such well-known examples as the Lincei of Rome, the Florentine Crusca, and the Olympian Academy of Vicenza. Noting with approval state sponsorship of learned societies in France and Tuscany, the author echoed Cristóbal Suárez de Figueroa's lament concerning the absence of similar organizations in Spain, despite the "importance and wit of its geniuses, well-developed in all faculties." ⁽⁴⁴⁾ The accuracy of the complaint that Spain lacked academies is certainly open to doubt. Beginning in the sixteenth century, academies and especially tertulias or salons flourished in Valencia, Seville, Madrid, and Saragossa. ⁽⁴⁵⁾ Yet the varied fortunes and sporadic existence [174] of these groups was a far cry from the permanent, even bureaucratic nature of sister groups like the Crusca or the Parisian royal academies. There was thus some justice in the Barcelona founders' view of themselves as filling a gap not just in the cultural life of their own city, but in that of the entire peninsula as well.

A glance at the social background of the Academy's initial membership reveals a group drawn largely from the higher ranks of the Catalan aristocracy. Six of the sixteen founders belonged to families that had been nobles for at least three generations. An additional three--the Counts of Darnius and Çavallá and the Marquis of Rubí--hailed from the titled nobility. ⁽⁴⁶⁾ Four other members belonged to the noblesa, although two were sons of fathers ennobled in their lifetimes. The remaining three founders included one cavaller, one honored citizen, and one commoner. Membership in the initial group was thus heavily weighted toward the upper levels of the traditional aristocracy, with a minority drawn from the ranks of the lower and/or more recent nobility.

What in particular attracted these individuals to the Academy? Little is known about how nobles entered the group. Several factors apparently influenced the recruitment of members. Not surprisingly, kinship ties linked together many of the founders. At least 3 of the original 16 members belonged to the [175] Boixadors-Rocaberti lineage cluster mentioned above. Moreover, marriage connections reveal several affinal relations among members: between Copons and Paguera, Taverner and Rubí, Dalmases and Rius, Amat and Junyent, and Rius and Taverner. Kinship also affected the admission of the 30 newcomers from June 1700 to March 1703. These included the younger brother and no fewer than 3 brothers-in-law of the Academy's most celebrated member, the antiquarian D. Pau Ignasi de Dalmases (1670-1718); the 2 Pellicer brothers (grandsons of the famed chronicler of Aragon); and the nephew of D. Joan de Pinos i de Rocabertí.

Other ties united the small nucleus of the Academy's founders. For example, common professional backgrounds were much in evidence. Eight of the 46 members were lawyers, while 2 others served in the central government bureaucracy. Another 7--including almost all the non-Catalans--were professional soldiers. The single largest shared occupation was that of the clergy. Fourteen members were ecclesiastics, half of whom were attached to the local cathedral as canons (5) or musicians (2). The rest of the clerical group comprised 4 canons of other churches resident in Barcelona, along with 3 theologians or members of special religious establishments like the Collegiate Church of Saint Anne's.

The venue of the Academy--the Carrer de Montcada--also provided a certain continuity. D. Pau Ignasi de Dalmases originally installed the Academia in the mansion recently acquired by his family on that street. He spent a considerable portion of the fortune that his forebears had amassed through the putting-out of cloth in Barcelona's hinterland, converting the medieval buildings into a patrician townhouse redesigned in the latest Baroque style. ⁽⁴⁷⁾ The Academy continued to meet in the Dalmases palace [176] after resuming its activities in 1727 following the War of Spanish Succession. With the admission in 1728 of D. Josep de Mora, Marquis of Llió, it began to alternate sessions between the Dalmases residence and the nearby Mora palace. The strong identification between the Carrer de Montcada and the noble Academy was hardly surprising. For centuries the street had attracted wealthy merchants and recently ennobled patricians like the Dalmases and Moras, who sought to enhance their claims to high status by taking up residence in its luxurious palaces. The specific social function of these mansions--their role as a vehicle for the conspicuous exhibition of wealth deemed an essential attribute of the nobility--resided not only in the direct patronage of fine arts, as in the Dalmases courtyard. The Academy afforded yet another opportunity to display the same learned cultura increasingly identified with the aristocracy. ⁽⁴⁸⁾

Common political affiliations also united most of the academicians. Only a small handful of members supported the Bourbon cause during the War of Spanish Succession. In the meantime, patricians like Dalmases, D. Josep Faust de Potau, Francesch Sans, the Marquis of Rubí, and the Counts of Cavallá and Ferran played major parts within the Habsburg camp, beginning as early as 1700. ⁽⁴⁹⁾ Although the role of politics in the Academy's activities has received little notice, the shared political allegiance of its members proved crucial in determining not only the composition but also the timing of the group's foundation. Its first meetings took place in the tense atmosphere of political uncertainty surrounding the dynastic succession of Charles II. His death later that year gave rise to the first public manifestation of the Academy's literary endeavors, a collective panegyric of the last Habsburg king published in 1701 under the title Nenias Reales (Royal Dirges). Furthermore, the themes for discussion in 1700 betrayed a growing preoccupation with  [177] contemporary politics. Amid the normal array of discourses on fine points of classical erudition and moral philosophy, one finds political topics presented under the guise of studies of episodes from Catalan or Imperial history. The meeting of August 30 in particular drew upon such themes in a deliberate attempt to rally support for the Habsburg dynasty. The first discourse thus celebrated James I's heroic defense of his succession at the age of ten against a clique of discontented nobles--a clear allusion to the Austrian Pretender. ⁽⁵⁰⁾ The second assumpto--one of the very few delivered in Catalan--consisted of a eulogy of the famed medieval warrior, Dalmau de Creixell, who died defending his king at the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212). ⁽⁵¹⁾ Another grimly prophetic discourse praised the "courage of the citizens of Sagunto, who preferred death and the destruction of their city to subjection to the Carthaginians." ⁽⁵²⁾ The final speech contained the most overtly pro-Habsburg statement, relating the foundation of a holy shrine by a recent Emperor "so celebrated for his piety." ⁽⁵³⁾ Orations like these--ostensibly historical in character, extolling in tandem both traditional Catalan nationalism and the Habsburg dynasty--point to a growing willingness to make at least indirect political statements in favor of the Austrian claimant of the throne. Significantly, the tenth session was also marked by a palpably anti-French tone. After D. Agustí de Copons recalled the sufferings of Barcelona during the French siege of 1697, the Marquis of Rubí unleashed a harangue on the perils [178] nations suffered during years of prolonged peace. ⁽⁵⁴⁾ However, this brief flurry of activism soon died out, and was replaced by a period of relative tranquility. The adverse political climate following the resolution of the succession in favor of Philip V doubtless encouraged the Academy to maintain a low profile until the Barcelona elite aligned itself in favor of Archduke Charles in 1705. ⁽⁵⁵⁾

Outside the realm of politics, the Desconfiats turned to less historical vocabulary and imagery. A strikingly consistent vision linking membership in the nobility with sustained intellectual activity informed their turgid musings. Time and again the academicians identified themselves with "wisdom," "knowledge," and especially ingenio. Thus the group's original charter specified its aims to be dedication to "ingenious occupations." At its first meeting, the "noble youth" seeking entry into the "Parnassus" of the Dalmases palace pleaded for an opportunity to "learn from the subtle and shining ingenio" of the Academy. Even more explicit was the Harmony of Parnassus (1703), a collective anthology of poems "edited by two ingenis of the Barcelona Academy." ⁽⁵⁶⁾The deliberately belleletristic tone cultivated in these meetings did not forbid appropriation of the stock themes and personae of the Cordelles and funeral orations. One finds the same association of nobility with study, accompanied by the fierce onslaught against ocio that loomed large as a subject in contemporary sermons and moral treatises. Hence also the appearance of familiar figures like Icarus and Phaeton, Minerva, the Phoenix, and especially the "Hercules of Eloquence."

Members of the Academy took considerable pains to distinguish their privileged knowledge from popular ignorance. Sym-[179] bolizing the power of education to set nobles apart from plebeian obscurity was an assumpto the barrister Josep Pla devoted to popular belief in black magic. This fascinating oration (ca. 1730) lampooned the "vulgarity" of the "false dream" of the witches' sabbath. Its ironic, even burlesque tone issued from the author's desire to ridicule the "superstitious" credulity of the lower orders. At the same time, the poem reveals a dramatic shift in ruling-class attitudes toward magic and the supernatural. What was previously regarded a dangerous form of plebeian knowledge was now belittled as an amusing proof of popular ignorance. ⁽⁵⁷⁾

The presence of such themes and symbols in the Academy's literary and musical compositions highlights the fundamental continuity of aristocratic self-image uniting institutions of elite socialization and leisure. The Academia dels Desconfiats constituted the most visible embodiment within early modern Barcelona of the ideal of an educated nobility. To be sure, its penchant for literary jeux d'esprit distanced it from the deliberately scientific character of many Italian sodalities. ⁽⁵⁸⁾ And, with the brief exception of the Austrophile years of the first decade of the century, it showed little of the enthusiasm for politics and the discussion of public utility of eighteenth-century French academies. ⁽⁵⁹⁾ Still, it provided a unique meeting-ground for old and new nobility, bound by a common class identity centering around a shared vision of learned "culture." As a result, the ideals and models it propagated through literature, art, and public discourse contributed [180]  significantly to the reproduction of aristocratic identity in the city. 

A handful of fundamental principles underlay the emerging ideal of elite cultura. First, contemporaries took pains to define "culture" as acquired knowledge. While some early modern writers considered proper innate disposition a necessary prerequisite, all agreed that cultura was obtained principally through formal education. It was thus a markedly public form of knowledge, one that could be openly verified or denied. As a result, "culture" often--though hardly exclusively--found validation through institutional sanctions like university degrees. It also possessed close ties to literacy, in deliberate contrast to the strictly oral or visual means of communication restricted to the lower classes. Finally, elite cultura was highly restrictive in character--that is, the limits placed on access by outsiders defined it to a crucial extent.

Such constrictions shaped both the content and forms of elite consciousness. For example, emphasis on the public character of ruling-class attitudes and behavior exaggerated its theatricality and sense of display. Moreover, insistence on literate sources of reference encouraged elite preferences for the non-vernacular languages, especially Castilian. It would thus be a mistake to try to reduce aristocratic cultura to an expository body of doctrines and beliefs. Equally if not more important were its forms of expression--its choice of literary style and language, and the changing modes of elite comportment in Barcelona's rituals and fêtes.

1. Gracián Dantisco, Galateo Español. The editio princeps bore a dedication to the honored citizen Joaquín Setantí. The first Barcelona edition of 1595 was dedicated to Francesch Bonet, a Diputat Reial and city Councillor elected honored citizen in 1600. Interestingly, this work headed the list of books owned and read by the noble lawyer D. Josep Faust de Potau; see Amelang, "The Education of Josep Faust De Potau." Other local texts guaranteed their readers instant learning. See for example: Palmireno, Estudioso Cortesano, Vocabulario del  Humanista, and Latino de Repente; and Ferrer, Método y Art Molt Breu.

2. Magendie, Politesse Mondaine, II and III; Elias, History of Manners.

3. A.E.B./Gratiarum, "Llicéncies per a tenir Estudi de Minyons." Persistent research has turned up few sources for the history of education in early modern Barcelona. In particular, the destruction or disappearance of Jesuit documentation following the expulsion of the Society from Spain in the later 17605 hampers study of the organization, extent, and content of elite education. The following account has thus been assembled from widely dispersed sources, and seeks merely to provide a preliminary sketch of general trends.

4. Ordinations de la Universitat de Barcelona, 63-64.

5. Azcárate, "Enseñanza Primaria."

6. Jutglar, "Enseñanza en Barcelona"; García Panadés, Pedagogía Catalana, I; Soldevila, Barcelona Sense Universitat; Coll, "Antiguo Colegio Mayor"; Collell, "Fundación del Colegio."

7. Albareda, Historia de Montserrat, 203-210; Saldoní, Reseña Histórica; Kagan, Students and Society, Chapters 1 and 7.

8. Gurrea, Arte de Enseñar. Julia Varela analyzes this and other early modern Spanish educational texts in her Modos de Educación

9. Conde and Tintó, "Projecte d'una Casa."

10. A.H.M.B./Ms. A-30. Potau later obtained a doctorate in civil and canon law. For a fuller discussion, see my "Education of Joseph Faust de Potau."

11. Borràs, "Col.legi de Sta. Maria," and his "Col.legi de Nobles."

12. In 1628, the Col.legi de Cordelles enrolled only six students: A.R.S.I./Arag. 27¹, Misiones, 221r. I am grateful to Frs. Miquel Batllori, Antoni Borràs, Edmond Lamalle, S.J., and Dr. Nigel Griffin for references and assistance with these documents.

13. A.S.V./Sac. Cong. Concilio, Relat. Dioc. ad Liminam, III A (Barcinon.), 283r. (1717).

14. A.R.S.I./Arag. 25-I, Litterae Annuae, 2v. and 19r. For matriculation figures of other Jesuit colleges in Spain, see Astrain, Compañía de Jesús, I, 197.

15. A.R.S.I./Arag. 25-I, Litterae Annuae, 14or.

16. A.R.S.I./Arag. 23-II, Fundaciones, 27ov.

17. The day-book of the city Councillors first reported their attendance at the fêtes in 1663: Dietari, XVII, 262. Similarly, episcopal visitations first mention the col.legi in 1661 (A.S.V./Relat. Dioc., 175r.). For academic theatre  in nearby Aragon, see Figueras, Teatro Escolar Zaragozano.

18. A.R.S.I./Arag. 25-I, Litterae Annuae, 8r. See in general Mullan, Congregazione Mariana. Unfortunately, I have not been able to locate any of the documents of the Barcelona association.

19. Bruniquer, Rúbriques, II, 348-349; Dietari, XVII, 656-673 (1662-1663); Rubió Borràs, Motines y Algaradas.

20. Borràs, "Col.legi de Nobles," 59; Simón Díaz, Colegio Imperial de Madrid.

21. Borràs, "Col.legi de Nobles," 69; Constituciones de Cordelles, 7.

22. Magestuosa Poética Fiesta. An internal memorandum of 1694 indicates that the policy of admitting a broader  selection of students had only recently been adopted: Borràs, "Col.legi de Nobles," 54.

23. For Jesuit education in general, see: Lukács, Monumenta Paedagogica; Herman, La Pédagogie des Jésuites;  Brizzi, Formazione della Classe Dirigente, and his Ratio Studiorum; Dainville, Éducation des Jésuites; and Salomone's introduction to his edition of the Ratio Studiorum.

24. Constituciones de Cordelles, 4 and 16.

25. Julià, Oración Fúnebre, "censura" by S. Escofet; Sans, Sabio Ignorante, I, 22-23.

26. Moreno, Claridad de Simples, dedication; Valencià, retirement petition, s.n.

27. Amat de Planella, Nenias Reales, "Razón de la Obra"; Garau, Sabio Instruido, II; Gurrea, Arte de Enseñar, 2v.

28. Calderó, Canción Real.

29. Alciati, Emblemata, nos. 137 and 180; B.U.B./Ms. 1588, Las Doce Empresas de Hércules Erudito  (s.d.); A.H.M.B./Ms. B-98, session of 10 June 1700. See also: Panofsky, Hercules am Scheidewege;  Tate, "Mythology in Spanish Historiography"; Morreale, "Salutati's De Laboribus Herculis"; Waith, Herculean Hero, Chapter 2; Jung, Hércule dans la Littérature Française; Galinsky, Herakles Theme, Chapter 9; and Vivanti, Lotta Política, Chapter 2.

30. Potau, Loa, A1.

31. Elias, History of Manners; Bakhtin, Rabelais.

32. Constituciones de Cordelles, 31-39.

33. A.S.V../Relat. Dioc., 43r. (1602) and 360r. (1736).

34. A.E.B. ./Ordinacions del Seminari o Col.legi Episcopal (1737), 104-105; Borràs, "Col.legi de Nobles," 86-87.  As noted above, by that point "don" indicated general social distinction, as opposed to the earlier, more restricted  reference to noblesa.

35. A.E.B./Ordinacions del Seminari, 1744 additions, unnumbered section entitled "Philosophia."

36. Cited in Galí, Maldà, 150.

37. Maravall, Poder, Honor, y Elites, 235.

38. Visitas de Gabriel Fideo a Francisco Arroz.

39. According to the Magestuosa Poética Fiesta, the public exercises of 1700 included the following  contests: improvisation in Latin, Castilian, and Catalan in at least 28 metrical forms; replies in Latin to questions  on Cicero's Epistles, "explaining . . . the plot, genre, year, and Consuls, all with erudition in Roman history";    written and oral examinations on the last six books of the Aeneid, the emblems of Alciati, and five books of  Horace, "raising doubts and giving solutions through citation of authorities"; ending with a poetry reading in the  "pompously adorned Theatre."

40. Romaguera, Atheneo de Grandesa, no. 6.

41. A.H.M.B./Ms. B-98; B.C./Ms. 1004. For the history of the Academy, see: Miret Sans, "Dos Siglos de  Vida Académica"; Moliné Erases, "Academia dels Desconfiats"; Carreras Bulbena, "Constitució," and his  "Estudis Biogràfíes"; Voltes Bou, "Nuevas Noticias"; Comas, Historia de la Literatura Catalana, IV,     76-103, 123-146, and 645-662; and García Dini, "Pablo Ignacio de Dalmases."

42. Voltes Bou, "Estatutos."

43. Amat de Planella, Nenias Reales, "Razón de la Obra."

44. Ibid. The paraphrase is from Suárez de Figueroa's Castilian adaptation of Garzoni's Piazza Universale,  published as Plaza Universal (verbo "Academia")

45. For early modern Spanish literary academies, see: King, Prosa Novelística;

46. The sixteen founding members were: D. Josep d'Amat i de Planella (made Marquis of Castellbell by Philip  V in 1702); D. Llorens de Barutell i de Erill, Count of Erill-Orcau; D. Joan Antoni de Boixadors, Count of  Cavallá; Josep Clua i Granyena; D. Agustí Copons i de Copons (named Marquis of Moya in 1702); D. Pau  Ignasi de Dalmases i Ros (invested Marquis of Vilallonga by Archduke Charles in 1710); Martín Díaz de Mayorga; D. Felip de Ferran i Cacirera (named Count of Ferran in 1706); D. Francesch de Josa i de Agulló; Joan de Pinos i de Rocabertí; D. Josep de Rius i de Falguera; D. Josep Antoni Rubí i de Boixadors, Marquis of Rubí; and D. Josep Taverner i de Ardena, Count of Darnius.

47. The sculpted friezes of the Triumph of Neptune and the Rape of Europa on the stairwell of the courtyard of the Dalmases palace rank among the finest examples of secular Baroque sculpture in Catalonia: Martinell,  Arquitectura i Escultura Barròques, II, nos. 17-18.

48. Amelang, "Carrer de Monteada." See also Burke, "Conspicuous Consumption."

49. Diccionari Biogràfic dels Catalans, entries for these individuals.

50. A.H.M.B./Ms. B-98, 30 August 1700. Josa, a canon of the Barcelona cathedral and later a principal "Carlista" who went into exile in Italy in 1713, delivered this speech.

51. The author of this discourse was D. Felip de Ferran, who served as Catalan ambassador to Holland in 1713.  His son D. Josep de Ferran i de Ferran played a leading role in the defense of Barcelona during the following year.

52. D. Antoni de Paguera, later a prominent Austrophile, delivered this assumpto.

53. The author of this speech--an account of a famous episode of the Austrian Counter-Reformation involving Emperor Ferdinand II--was the Marquis of Rubí, who later served as the Archduke's viceroy in Mallorca and  Sardinia, dying in exile in Vienna in 1741.

54. Carreras Bulbena, "Constitució," 238-239.

55. Soldevila, Historia de Catalunya, III, Chapters 33-34. The early arrest of Dalmases provides a likely explanation for the inactivity of the Academy during the Habsburg Interregnum.

56. A.H.MB./Ms. B-98, 10 June 1700; Amat de Planella, Nenias Reales, "Razón de la Obra"; Armonía del Parnàs, title-page.

57. B.N./Ms. 19,576, 281r.- 284v., "Assumpto que Donà la Acadèmia de Bones Lletres al Dr. Josep Pla, Celebra Advocat y Poeta, sobre la Vulgaritat dels Balls de las Bruixas." See also Thomas, Religion and The Decline of Magic, Chapters 18 and 22.

58. Cochrane, Tradition and Enlightenment; Vasoli, Cultura delta Corti, 159-189; Quaderni Storici; and  Accademie e Cultura. For a broad overview of similar groups in Germany and Austria, see Evans,  "Learned Societies."

59. Roche, Siécle des Lumières, I, 323-355; Emerson, "Enlightenment and Social Structures"; Chisick, Limits to Reform, Chapter 1.