La Casa de Medinaceli vista desde un periódico de Estados Unidos con motivo del fallecimiento de la Duquesa de Medinaceli
The Telegraph
23 de agosto 2013
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituar ... aceli.htmlLa duquesa de Medinaceli
La 18 ª duquesa de Medinaceli, que ha muerto a los 96 años, fue nueve veces lduquesa, 18 veces marquesa, 19 veces la condesa, cuatro veces vizcondesa y 14 veces grande de España, así como la cabeza de una familia cuyos miembros incluían tres santos y dos Papas.
"She inherited her titles in her own right on her father’s death in 1956, and could not remember how many castles she owned in her native Spain; her best guess was between 90 and 100
On one occasion she was browsing through the pages of a magazine when a picture of camellias growing in the grounds of a beautiful castle in north-west Spain caught her eye. On reading the caption she discovered to her surprise that the Palace of Oca, in Galicia, and the camellias, belonged to her.
She did not, however, neglect her heritage, and in 1980 established the Ducal House of Medinaceli Foundation to manage and conserve the family’s property and historic assets scattered across nearly all the Spanish regions.
The Duchess should, perhaps, have earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the most titled human being on earth, but instead the accolade went to her colourful cousin, Cayetana, Duchess of Alba — a woman known for her valiant efforts to hold back the depredations of time with cosmetic surgery. It is said that when the publicity-shy Duchess of Medinaceli discovered that she was to be listed in the popular reference work, alongside assorted freaks and daredevils, she petitioned the king to be allowed to pass on 17 of her titles to her sons.
She felt that the Duchess of Alba, “with her English blood” (the Albas are directly descended from the Duke of Berwick, the illegitimate son of James II by Arabella Churchill, sister of the Duke of Marlborough), would enjoy the publicity.
Victoria Eugenia Fernández de Córdoba y Fernández de Henestrosa was born in Madrid on April 16 1917, the eldest daughter of Don Luis Jesús Fernández de Córdoba y Salabert, 17th Duke of Medinaceli, and Doña Ana María Fernández de Henestrosa y Gayoso de los Cobos. The Dukedom of Medinaceli, one of the oldest in Spain, had been created in 1479 by the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella for Luis de la Cerda y de la Vega, Count of Medinaceli.
In keeping with her illustrious ancestry, Doña Victoria was baptised at the Royal Palace, with King Alfonso XIII and his wife Queen Victoria Eugenia (after whom she was named) as godparents. Before she succeeded to the Medinaceli titles, Doña Victoria was known as the 16th Duchess of Alcalá de los Gazules, a courtesy title granted by her father.
On her 14th birthday, following the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic, she and her mother, grandmother and sister left Spain on the same train that carried Queen Victoria Eugenia and her children into exile. Her father left with the King.
In 1937, however, the family returned to Spain, to the beautiful Casa de Pilatos, the family’s main residence in Seville, which had fallen to Francoist forces in the first months of the Civil War the previous year. In 1938 she married Don Rafael de Medina y Vilallonga, son of the second son of the 4th Marquis of Esquivel.
The Duchess and her husband had four children, and as well as working to protect the family heritage she devoted herself to cultural, social and educational projects.
After her husband’s death in 1992, the Duchess’s later years were overshadowed by a scandal involving the second of her three sons, Rafael Medina y Fernandez de Cordoba, Duke of Feria, who in 1994 was sentenced to 18 years in prison for kidnapping a five-year-old girl and bathing and photographing her in the nude, as well as for drug trafficking and corruption of minors.
The trial, which received widespread coverage in the Spanish media, highlighted the Duke’s sexual perversions, his cocaine addiction, his life in the Seville underworld, his failed marriage to a
model, and his childhood, allegedly devoid of maternal love.
The sentence was subsequently reduced on appeal, and in 1998 the Duke was released on parole. In 2001 he was reported to have died of natural causes, aged 58.
The Duchess’s eldest son, Don Luis de Medina y Fernández de Córdoba, 9th Duke of Santisteban del Puerto, predeceased her in 2011, as did her daughter and eldest child, Ana, who died last year.
She is survived by her youngest son, Don Ignacio de Medina y Fernández de Córdoba, 19th Duke of Segorbe, second husband of Princess Maria da Gloria d’Orléans-Braganza. Marco von Hohenlohe y Medina (Prince Marco of Hohenlohe-Langenburg), the son of her daughter Ana, born in 1962, succeeds as the 19th Duke of Medinaceli.
The 18th Duchess of Medinaceli, born April 16 1917, died August 18 2013
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, por eso pregunto, pero no pasa nada, si crees que es mejor no contarlo no te tiraré de la lengua 
