Jose Patiño Biography

José Patiño

(José Patiño Rosales; Milan, 1666-La Granja de San Ildefonso, 1736) Italian minister in the service of Felipe V of Spain.He was educated with the Jesuits, although he did not become a priest.He was the brother of General Baltasar Patiño, Marquis of Castelar, several times the minister of Felipe V.This made him call during the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-14) to appoint him mayor of his armies in Extremadura (1711) and in Catalonia (1713).

José Patiño

After the war ended with the triumph of the Bourbons over the Habsburgs, Felipe V appointed him president of the Superior Board of Government and Justice of Catalonia (1714-16), with the task of applying the reforms introduced in the Principality by abolishing the traditional institutions of self-government.Those reforms included the introduction of a new tributary system that made the kingdoms of the old Crown of Aragon contribute to the royal coffers in proportions similar to those of the old Crown of Castile; For this, Patiño created in 1716 the Cadastre that bears his name, a registry of the assets and income of Catalonia for the distribution of the tax quota required by the Crown.

The success achieved led Patiño to be appointed general intendant of the Navy and president of the Court of Contract of the Indies (1717); fell from grace in 1719, but returned to power in 1726 as Secretary of State for the Navy and the Indies and for Finance (later also for War and State), becoming the director of Spanish foreign policy between 1728 and 1736.To the strengthening of the Navy and the promotion of trade with America as pillars of the reestablishment of the international power of the Monarchy, which it tried to make a reality through a policy of influence in Italy.

He moved the Casa de Contratación from Seville to Cádiz and founded in this city the School of Midshipmen and the shipyards of La Carraca; he proposed the extension to all of Spain of the Catalan cadastre (which would not be achieved until the times of the Marquis of La Ensenada); it promoted the settlement in North Africa, with the reconquest of Oran (1732); and organized the Spanish expeditions to Sardinia and Sicily (1717-18), as well as the participation in the War of the Polish Succession (1733-35), which allowed the king's son, Carlos III, to be placed on the throne of Naples, pleasing with this the designs of Queen Isabel de Farnese.

Patiño was, therefore, an efficient servant of the Spanish Bourbons, whom he helped in the double task of defending their dynastic patrimonial interests and modernizing the State in a rationalist and centralizing sense.