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Leopoldo de Gregorio, 1st Marquess of Esquilache

Sicilian-born Spanish statesman

Summary

Sicilian-born Spanish statesman

Field	Value
name	The Marquess of Esquilache
office	Secretary of State of the Treasury of Spain
honorific-prefix	The Most Excellent
honorific_suffix	OWE
image	Giuseppe bonito-esquilache.jpg
caption	Giuseppe Bonito: Portrait of Leopoldo de Gregorio, marchese di Squillace, Madrid, Museo del Prado.
term_start	25 December 1759
term_end	1 April 1766
monarch	Charles III
1blankname	First Secretary of State
1namedata	Ricardo Wall
Jerónimo Grimaldi
predecessor	Juan Francisco de Gaona y Portocarrero
successor	Miguel de Múzquiz y Goyeneche
office2	Secretary of State for War of Spain
monarch2	Charles III
1blankname2	First Secretary of State
1namedata2	Ricardo Wall
Jerónimo Grimaldi
predecessor2	Ricardo Wall
successor2	Juan Gregorio Muniáin
termstart2	1 September 1763
termend2	1 April 1766
birth_date	23 December 1699
birth_place	Messina, Kingdom of Sicily
death_date
death_place	Venice, Republic of Venice
spouse	Giuseppa Mauro, Giuseppa Verduga
children	12

| honorific-prefix = The Most Excellent Jerónimo Grimaldi Jerónimo Grimaldi

Leopoldo de Gregorio, 1st Marquess of Esquilache, OWE (Messina, December 23, 1699 – Venice, September 15, 1785), known in Spanish as Marqués de Esquilache and in Italian as Marchese di Squillace, was a Sicilian-born Spanish statesman who was Minister of Finance of Spain between 1759 and 1766.

Biography

Born in Messina, he was the son of Francesco Maria de Gregorio, and his wife Maria Orsola Masnada. De Gregorio was one of Enlightenment Spain's leading statesmen from the arrival of Charles III to the Marquis's death in 1785. His ability as a military supplier for the Neapolitan army impressed the king and raised him to royal prominence. He was created "Marquess of Squillace" in 1755.

Charles III had been introduced to reform by his mentor in Sicily, Bernardo Tanucci. Although Tanucci remained behind in the Two Sicilies to advise Charles's son, King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies, as the two thrones could not be united by consequence of treaty, Charles carried with him a cadre of Italian reformers who saw potential in the Spanish bureaucracy for modernization. De Gregorio was one of them, and was the architect of the first phase of Charles' reforms.

His attempt to modernize the apparel of the average Spaniard resulted in the Esquilache Riots and in his dismissal. Charles was forced to make Esquilache ambassador to Venice. It was a move that both Charles and Esquilache lamented. Esquilache felt that his measures in Spain had deserved a statue, and would comment that he had cleaned and paved the city streets and had created boulevards, and had nevertheless been dismissed.

He died in Venice.

References

[https://gw.geneanet.org/mariothegreat?lang=en&n=de+gregorio&nz=gregorio&oc=0&p=leopoldo&pz=mario&type=tree Geneanet]
Acton, Harold. (1957). "The Bourbons of Naples (1731-1825)". Faber and Faber.
"Leopoldo de Gregorio y Masnata".

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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