Els governadors de la Ciutadella de Barcelona durant el segle XXVIII

Abstract

In 1718 Philip V of Spain appointed the first Governor of the Citadel of Barcelona. This governor was one of the most important military commanders of Catalonia in the eighteenth century. Its first holder was the Flemish engineer, Jorge Próspero de Verboom, one of the most prestigious soldiers of the reign of the first bourbon. Although we know very well the military career of Verboom, little or nothing we know of the other governors of the century. According to our data, ten were the governors of the Barcelona Citadel between 1718 and 1808. Almost all of them soldiers with extensive years of service in the army and distinguished merits in the battlefields in which dynastic interests of the house of Bourbon were settled. The military graduation of entry was that of official general brigadier, field marshal and lieutenant general but it was decisive in the appointment to belong to the elite troops of the royal house. I am referring to one of the two regiments of the royal Spanish and Walloon infantry guards. Almost all the governors were regnícolas and Spaniards, although not all were born in Spain; and the foreign component Flemish and French had a remarkable weight. The charge became life for prestigious military, high-ranking, mature or advanced and with a notable social position. It was what was expected of the military in charge of leading one of the key citadels of Spain in the eighteenth century, as always was, without doubt, the Barcelona.