History

Joaquín de Eguía y Aguirre, III Marquis de Narros

(Azkoitia, 1733-Vitoria, 1803)
Vice-Secretary, Deputy Secretary (1773) and Lifetime Secretary (1774-1803) of the Royal Basque Society of the Friends of the Country.

He was a friend and close associate of the Count of Peñaflorida in founding and developing the Royal Basque Society, to which he contributed his extensive scientific knowledge, his deep patriotic idealism and proven organizational capacity. Throughout his schooling, in the absence of confirmation of a likely sojourn abroad, almost certainly in France, it is only known that he studied in Zaragoza, Salamanca and in the Real Seminario de Nobles in Madrid, where he attained a profound knowledge of physics and chemistry. Together with Manuel Ignacio de Altuna y Portu and the aforementioned Peñaflorida, he was one of the main figures who featured prominently at the academic gatherings at Insausti Palace.

He was actively involved in drafting the Plan de una sociedad económica (1763) (Plan for an economic society) and was a founding member of the Royal Basque Society of the Friends of the Country. Much of his dedication to the Society was directed at organizing the studies at the Royal Seminary of Bergara, of which he was appointed Lifetime Director of the Departments of Physics, Chemistry and Mineralogy by Carlos IV (1787), an appointment which was challenged by some of his Royal Basque Society peers and caused his temporary withdrawal from the affairs pertaining thereto. Francophile, encyclopédiste and correspondent for Voltaire, was repeatedly denounced to the Inquisition for proffering outrageous suggestions on the Church doctrine, and was condemned in 1768. As deputy of war in Gipuzkoa he had to deal with the invasion of the province by the French conventionalists.

He is credited with writing the work Elogio a don Javier Munibe Idiaquez, conde de Peñaflorida. He is the author of a translation of The Clemency of Titus by Metastasio. He was also an academician of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Fine Arts and Humanities of Bordeaux and a member of the Royal Economic Society of Madrid.

 

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DIRECTION OF THE ROYAL BASQUE SOCIEY OF THE FRIENDS OF THE COUNTRY

Palacio Intsausti
Aptdo. 105 – 20720 AZKOITIA
Tel. 943 285 577
E-mail: intsausti.rsbap@gmail.com

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