Duque de Gor

The title Dukedom of Gor or Duque de Gor was granted by King Charles IV of Spain on 4 October 1802, upon people named Nicolás Mauricio Alvarez de las Asturias - Bohorques related towards the end of the 18th century through their feminine ancestors to some ten or eleven preceding Christian Lords, Señores de Gor, established there since around 1500 after the final crumbling of the Muslim Kingdom of Granada in 1492, namely the de Castilla y Lasso de Castilla, illegitimate descendants of King Pedro I of Castile.

Gor and Gorafe, heads of the Dukedom farming lands, are located within the province of Granada, and their castles have been labelled by the "Junta de Andalucia", (Autonomous Andalusian Government in Seville) as B. I. C. ("Bien de Interes Cultural") since June 1985.

Dukes

The first Duke Nicolás Mauricio, while living in Granada in a palace much renovated later by the notorious Architect Francisco Gimenez Arevalo knew the American writer Washington Irving, U. S. Ambassador in Spain from 1842 to 1845 and according to Irving biographer Democrat Claude Bowers, U. S. Ambassador in Spain under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, came down in his second stay in Granada, from the palaces of the Alhambra to the some 6,000 manuscripts, books and Arabic documents from the 14th and 15th century Nasri Kings of Granada in possession of the 1st Duke.

There were centuries-old disputes on Gor and Gorafe farming people about a purchase dating from 1427–1428, to "Abencerraje family" King Muhammad IX of Granada some 60 – 70 years before the Christian Conquest of Granada, for instance.

This region got privileges for the yearly transfers of cattle between the mountains of Sierra Nevada and those further north at Sierra Morena.

These privileges, very necessary to the nobility and the church authorities, are then some sort of late co-lateral rights with drinking water rights around the river Guadahortuna as the medieval and powerful "Concejo de la Mesta" have been using in the Kingdom of Castile during the Middle Ages.

Such fabulous collection of documents and books, used by Washington Irving in the first third of the 19th century was bought privately in 1962 by the Majorca notorious multimillionaire banker Bartolomé March, one of General Francisco Franco financial epigones.

The Dukes of Gor "books and papers" were then separated into two parts, one in Madrid and another one in Palma, hopefully well preserved and perhaps with accesses to genuine researchers allowed to the private Fundación Bartolomé March.

There is a 1907 catalogue printed in Granada about such papers, probably better kept now in Madrid and Palma by the March Foundation than before.

Bibliography and hints for internet researches

The very discreet banking family "March" seems to be heading several "March Foundations".

There are some 996,000 references in Google (24 April 2008) on "Fundación March" when prompting only those two words. Adequate filtering should give better filtered results, probably. Even so, we venture some here.

One is described as Fundacion March (created 1928): One of their pages is:

http://www.fundacionmarch.es/

It must be Joan or Juan March Ordinas, (1880–1962) who dealt with tobacco and petrol and prompts heavy silences even today on some Majorca Island rural inhabitants.

See then, however, what seems to be "research" on the economic history of the family by people interested in Recent Spanish Economic and Social History:

http://www.juanmarch.com/

The "Museu d´Art Espanyol Comtemporari" in Palma is described in:

http://museos.consumer.es/documentos/marchpalma/introduccion.php

but can be also reached through :

http://www.spain.info/TourSpain/Arte+y+Cultura/Museos/D/MW/0/Museo+de+Arte+Espanol+Contemporaneo+(Fundacion+Juan+March)?Language=es

There is however another 1955 Foundation in Madrid:

http://www.descubremadrid.com/dm/es_ES/p/ocio%7Cmusica%7CfichaLugarMusica.jsp/idM/103/idObj/2412223/

The famous "Museo de Arte Abstracto" in Cuenca, Spain, overlooking awe-inspiring sights on a cliff can be reached now also through:

http://es.photography-now.com/institutions/I7456963.html

One of his sons, Bartolomé March, a lover of fine art and fine books and documents, who bought in 1962 the Granada Library of the Dukes of Gor, hereby described, created another Foundation in 1975:

http://www.fundbmarch.es/