Fernando Fernández de Córdova

Spain state institutions Counter-revolutionary forces 1809–1883 ○ Natural causes

Spanish general who led the 1849 expedition to Gaeta to restore the Pope against the Roman Republic, later briefly prime minister

Born in Buenos Aires in 1809, the son of a naval officer, he and his brother Luis fought on the Isabelline side in the First Carlist War, and he belonged to the Moderate Party. Appointed captain general of Catalonia on 4 September 1848, he put down the rebel cells of the Second Carlist War there by early 1849. In May 1849 he was sent to Italy to restore the temporal power of Pius IX and overthrow the Roman Republic, leading a force of 4,000 Spanish soldiers deployed at Gaeta at the Pope's disposition. He later became minister of war and, in the crisis of July 1854, prime minister for a single day. Although he had always supported Isabella II, he backed the Revolution of 1868 and joined the Radical Democratic Party, retiring from politics in 1873. He died in Madrid in 1883.

Also known as: Fernando Fernández de Córdova y Valcárcel · Marquis of Mendigorría