Joaquín Rubio y Muñoz
Encyclopedia
Joaquín Rubio y Muñoz was a Spanish
lawyer who was a noted antiquarian
and numismatist in the city of Cádiz
, Spain. He built up a library of manuscripts and rare books and in particular was known for his extensive collection of ancient coins and medals, many of which are now in museums in Spain and Denmark.
His parents had married in Cádiz Cathedral
:es:Catedral de Cádiz in 1774 but both came originally from other parts of Andalusia
. His father, Juan Felipe Rubio Egea, was born in the city of Córdoba, Spain
in 1740 and his mother, Ana Ramona Muñoz de Pedros, was born in the small hill town of Villa de Casares, Málaga
province, in 1750.
By profession, Joaquín was a lawyer. He came from a family of lawyers – his father, brother and son were all also lawyers. The legal posts Joaquín held were as follows: Escribano Público de Número de Cádiz, Secretario del Juzgado de Avenencias del Distrito Consular de Cádiz and Escribano de Cámara Honorario de la Audiencia de Sevilla. Outside of the legal world of his work, he was also President of the Archaeological Deputation for the Province of Cádiz, Fellow of the [Spanish] Royal Academy of History http://www.rah.es/, of the Spanish Academy of Archaeology, Fellow of the Cádiz Academy of Don Alonso the Wise and Knight of the Royal Danish Order of Dannebrog (see below).
Joaquín Rubio got married in 1823, in the church of San Lorenzo http://www.infocadiz.com/Monumentos/Iglesia_San_Lorenzo.htm in Cádiz, to María Dolores Bosichy Pitaluga. She was a native of Cádiz, but was partly of Greek descent as her grandfather, Rodolfo Bosichi [Ρόδης Μποζίkης or Rodios Bozikis], had been born in Patras
in Greece (he fled when the Turks invaded in 1715, was educated in the Greek college in Venice, and later settled in Cádiz to trade as a merchant).
Joaquín and María Dolores had two children, named after their mother and father respectively: María Dolores Rubio Bosichy and Joaquín Rubio Bosichy. The latter married María Josefa de Artecona y de Lafuente, who became Marquesa de Casa Rábago on the death of her grandmother, María Josefa Fernández de Rábago O'Ryan, a philanthropist who, as President of the Ladies' Council (Junta de Damas) in Cádiz for over thirty years, had devoted much energy to establishing free education for girls in that city http://wikanda.cadizpedia.eu/wiki/Mar%C3%ADa_Josefa_Fern%C3%A1ndez_de_R%C3%A1bago.
, Greece
and Rome
. He also amassed a private library of rare books and manuscripts. As a result he was in contact with scholars and collectors and was described in 1852, by the Curator of the Royal Coin and Medal collection (later the Director of the National Archaeological Museum), Basilio Sebastián Castellanos de Losada, as a “learned antiquarian and famous coin collector” [ilustrado anticuario y célebre coleccionista numismático]. In 1848 the writer Adolfo de Castro :es:Adolfo de Castro refers to various very rare manuscripts, including an early 15th century treatise on chivalry written in the Provençal language, being in the private library (described as ‘preciosísima’) of don Joaquín Rubio, ‘gran anticuario y poseedor de muchos libros y manuscritos rarísimos’ [a great antiquarian and owner of many extremely rare books and manuscripts].
Fifty letters written to Joaquín by the liberal writer, intellectual and critic Bartolomé José Gallardo :es:Bartolomé José Gallardo, dealing with various literary matters, are now in the library of the Spanish Royal Academy of History and were published in a book about Gallardo by Pedro Sáinz Rodríguez
in 1986. Amongst other things they refer to the publication in 1845, by the Cádiz city council [ayuntamiento], of a late 16th century History of the City of Cádiz by Agustín Horozco http://www.alltheanswers.com/content_biography/agustin-de-horozco.html with an appendix on the coins of Cádiz written by Joaquín Rubio. The letters make it clear the two men were good friends and that Gallardo also knew Joaquín’s son, Joaquín Rubio Bosichy, who was a law student in the mid-1840s at the Universidad Central, as the Complutense University of Madrid
was known at that time.
[Dannebrog = Danish flag]. The reason for this award seems to be Joaquín Rubio’s co-operation with King Christian VIII of Denmark
, via consular intermediaries, in agreeing to sell (or swap in some cases) duplicate rare coins from his collection which the Danish King was anxious to acquire for his own important coin collection, and which were transferred to Copenhagen in November 1847.
However, although the Royal Coin Collection at the National Museum of Denmark
in Copenhagen is still the home of some of Joaquín’s coin collection, the bulk of his collection is now in the National Archaeological Museum of Spain
[Museo Arqueológico Nacional] in Madrid. Over 8000 coins from the ‘Rubio collection’ were transferred there during Joaquín’s own lifetime. There was interest in acquiring the collection for the Spanish nation in the 1850s, and discussion as to whether it should go to the National Museum or the Museum of the Royal Academy of History http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/servlet/SirveObras/rahis/12482320811465973087846/index.htm, or be split between the two http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/servlet/SirveObras/rahis/02430623344139506322202/index.htmhttp://www.cervantesvirtual.com/servlet/SirveObras/rahis/13583899871158721754491/p0000001.htm. Joaquín donated a number of rare coins to the Academy’s collection http://www.rah.es/gabineteAntiguedades.htm, but most of his coin collection (8,298 coins, including 190 gold coins - 117 of these being antique gold coins) was sold by him to the national collection in May 1858.
Joaquín had doubtless been giving thought to the future of his coin collection. There is nothing to indicate that either of his children, both married by now, shared his passion for coins. 1858 was the year he reached the age of 70, and wrote his Will, in which he explains he has already given equal and substantial sums of money to his two children at the time of their marriages. A granddaughter was born the same year of 1858 – he already had a grandson - and he must have realised it would be sensible to sort out a safe permanent home for his collection in his lifetime (he was not to know he would live another sixteen years). It must have seemed a good solution for the bulk of his collection to find a home with, and complement significantly, the best coin collection in Spain.
Joaquín’s collecting instinct did not cease with the transfer of over 8000 coins to Madrid, however. The 1871 Cádiz Guide says that Joaquín’s private coin collection, ‘despite having enriched with some excellent pieces the National Museum and the Museum of the Academy of History’, continues to contain a good assortment which is ‘still increasing’! By then he was 83; he lived until 30 November 1874, dying at the age of 86, in the city in which he had spent his whole life.
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
lawyer who was a noted antiquarian
Antiquarian
An antiquarian or antiquary is an aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient objects of art or science, archaeological and historic sites, or historic archives and manuscripts...
and numismatist in the city of Cádiz
Cádiz
Cadiz is a city and port in southwestern Spain. It is the capital of the homonymous province, one of eight which make up the autonomous community of Andalusia....
, Spain. He built up a library of manuscripts and rare books and in particular was known for his extensive collection of ancient coins and medals, many of which are now in museums in Spain and Denmark.
Biography
Joaquín Rubio was born on 27 July 1788 in the city of Cádiz, and baptised four days later in the church of San Antonio http://www.infocadiz.com/Monumentos/Iglesia_San_Antonio.htm. His full baptismal name was Joaquín José María Nazario Juan Nepomuceno Rubio y Muñoz. However he seems rarely to have used the two surnames traditionally used by Spaniards, and to have preferred the simplest form of his name, Joaquín Rubio (in a few sources he is referred to as Joaquín María Rubio).His parents had married in Cádiz Cathedral
Cádiz Cathedral
Cádiz Cathedral is a Roman Catholic church in Cádiz, southern Spain. It was built between 1722 and 1838...
:es:Catedral de Cádiz in 1774 but both came originally from other parts of Andalusia
Andalusia
Andalusia is the most populous and the second largest in area of the autonomous communities of Spain. The Andalusian autonomous community is officially recognised as a nationality of Spain. The territory is divided into eight provinces: Huelva, Seville, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga, Jaén, Granada and...
. His father, Juan Felipe Rubio Egea, was born in the city of Córdoba, Spain
Córdoba, Spain
-History:The first trace of human presence in the area are remains of a Neanderthal Man, dating to c. 32,000 BC. In the 8th century BC, during the ancient Tartessos period, a pre-urban settlement existed. The population gradually learned copper and silver metallurgy...
in 1740 and his mother, Ana Ramona Muñoz de Pedros, was born in the small hill town of Villa de Casares, Málaga
Casares, Málaga
Casares is a town and municipality in Spain, located in Málaga province, in the autonomous community of Andalusia.-Geography and demography:...
province, in 1750.
By profession, Joaquín was a lawyer. He came from a family of lawyers – his father, brother and son were all also lawyers. The legal posts Joaquín held were as follows: Escribano Público de Número de Cádiz, Secretario del Juzgado de Avenencias del Distrito Consular de Cádiz and Escribano de Cámara Honorario de la Audiencia de Sevilla. Outside of the legal world of his work, he was also President of the Archaeological Deputation for the Province of Cádiz, Fellow of the [Spanish] Royal Academy of History http://www.rah.es/, of the Spanish Academy of Archaeology, Fellow of the Cádiz Academy of Don Alonso the Wise and Knight of the Royal Danish Order of Dannebrog (see below).
Joaquín Rubio got married in 1823, in the church of San Lorenzo http://www.infocadiz.com/Monumentos/Iglesia_San_Lorenzo.htm in Cádiz, to María Dolores Bosichy Pitaluga. She was a native of Cádiz, but was partly of Greek descent as her grandfather, Rodolfo Bosichi [Ρόδης Μποζίkης or Rodios Bozikis], had been born in Patras
Patras
Patras , ) is Greece's third largest urban area and the regional capital of West Greece, located in northern Peloponnese, 215 kilometers west of Athens...
in Greece (he fled when the Turks invaded in 1715, was educated in the Greek college in Venice, and later settled in Cádiz to trade as a merchant).
Joaquín and María Dolores had two children, named after their mother and father respectively: María Dolores Rubio Bosichy and Joaquín Rubio Bosichy. The latter married María Josefa de Artecona y de Lafuente, who became Marquesa de Casa Rábago on the death of her grandmother, María Josefa Fernández de Rábago O'Ryan, a philanthropist who, as President of the Ladies' Council (Junta de Damas) in Cádiz for over thirty years, had devoted much energy to establishing free education for girls in that city http://wikanda.cadizpedia.eu/wiki/Mar%C3%ADa_Josefa_Fern%C3%A1ndez_de_R%C3%A1bago.
A passion for collecting
Over the course of at least forty years, Joaquín built up a major collection of coins http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/servlet/SirveObras/rahis/01477529113425284199079/index.htm, particularly antique coins from ancient CarthageCarthage
Carthage , implying it was a 'new Tyre') is a major urban centre that has existed for nearly 3,000 years on the Gulf of Tunis, developing from a Phoenician colony of the 1st millennium BC...
, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
and Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
. He also amassed a private library of rare books and manuscripts. As a result he was in contact with scholars and collectors and was described in 1852, by the Curator of the Royal Coin and Medal collection (later the Director of the National Archaeological Museum), Basilio Sebastián Castellanos de Losada, as a “learned antiquarian and famous coin collector” [ilustrado anticuario y célebre coleccionista numismático]. In 1848 the writer Adolfo de Castro :es:Adolfo de Castro refers to various very rare manuscripts, including an early 15th century treatise on chivalry written in the Provençal language, being in the private library (described as ‘preciosísima’) of don Joaquín Rubio, ‘gran anticuario y poseedor de muchos libros y manuscritos rarísimos’ [a great antiquarian and owner of many extremely rare books and manuscripts].
Fifty letters written to Joaquín by the liberal writer, intellectual and critic Bartolomé José Gallardo :es:Bartolomé José Gallardo, dealing with various literary matters, are now in the library of the Spanish Royal Academy of History and were published in a book about Gallardo by Pedro Sáinz Rodríguez
Pedro Sainz Rodríguez
Pedro Sainz Carlos Rodríguez was a Spanish writer, philologist, publisher and politician, an adviser to Infante Juan, Count of Barcelona and one of the main architects of the reign of Juan Carlos I of Spain and the Spanish transition to democracy...
in 1986. Amongst other things they refer to the publication in 1845, by the Cádiz city council [ayuntamiento], of a late 16th century History of the City of Cádiz by Agustín Horozco http://www.alltheanswers.com/content_biography/agustin-de-horozco.html with an appendix on the coins of Cádiz written by Joaquín Rubio. The letters make it clear the two men were good friends and that Gallardo also knew Joaquín’s son, Joaquín Rubio Bosichy, who was a law student in the mid-1840s at the Universidad Central, as the Complutense University of Madrid
Complutense University of Madrid
The Complutense University of Madrid is a university in Madrid, and one of the oldest universities in the world. It is located on a sprawling campus that occupies the entirety of the Ciudad Universitaria district of Madrid, with annexes in the district of Somosaguas in the neighboring city of...
was known at that time.
Honoured by a fellow coin collector - the Danish King
On 16 November 1847, at the age of 59, Joaquín Rubio was made a Knight of the Royal Danish Order of the DannebrogOrder of the Dannebrog
The Order of the Dannebrog is an Order of Denmark, instituted in 1671 by Christian V. It resulted from a move in 1660 to break the absolutism of the nobility. The Order was only to comprise 50 noble Knights in one class plus the Master of the Order, i.e. the Danish monarch, and his sons...
[Dannebrog = Danish flag]. The reason for this award seems to be Joaquín Rubio’s co-operation with King Christian VIII of Denmark
Christian VIII of Denmark
Christian VIII , was king of Denmark from 1839 to 1848 and, as Christian Frederick, king of Norway in 1814. He was the eldest son of Hereditary Prince Frederick of Denmark and Norway and Sophia Frederica of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, born in 1786 at Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen...
, via consular intermediaries, in agreeing to sell (or swap in some cases) duplicate rare coins from his collection which the Danish King was anxious to acquire for his own important coin collection, and which were transferred to Copenhagen in November 1847.
However, although the Royal Coin Collection at the National Museum of Denmark
National Museum of Denmark
The National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen is Denmark’s largest museum of cultural history, comprising the histories of Danish and foreign cultures, alike. The museum's main domicile is located a short distance from Strøget at the center of Copenhagen. It contains exhibits from around the world,...
in Copenhagen is still the home of some of Joaquín’s coin collection, the bulk of his collection is now in the National Archaeological Museum of Spain
National Archaeological Museum of Spain
The National Archaeological Museum of Spain is a museum in Madrid, Spain, located beside the Plaza de Colón , sharing its building with the National Library....
[Museo Arqueológico Nacional] in Madrid. Over 8000 coins from the ‘Rubio collection’ were transferred there during Joaquín’s own lifetime. There was interest in acquiring the collection for the Spanish nation in the 1850s, and discussion as to whether it should go to the National Museum or the Museum of the Royal Academy of History http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/servlet/SirveObras/rahis/12482320811465973087846/index.htm, or be split between the two http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/servlet/SirveObras/rahis/02430623344139506322202/index.htmhttp://www.cervantesvirtual.com/servlet/SirveObras/rahis/13583899871158721754491/p0000001.htm. Joaquín donated a number of rare coins to the Academy’s collection http://www.rah.es/gabineteAntiguedades.htm, but most of his coin collection (8,298 coins, including 190 gold coins - 117 of these being antique gold coins) was sold by him to the national collection in May 1858.
Joaquín had doubtless been giving thought to the future of his coin collection. There is nothing to indicate that either of his children, both married by now, shared his passion for coins. 1858 was the year he reached the age of 70, and wrote his Will, in which he explains he has already given equal and substantial sums of money to his two children at the time of their marriages. A granddaughter was born the same year of 1858 – he already had a grandson - and he must have realised it would be sensible to sort out a safe permanent home for his collection in his lifetime (he was not to know he would live another sixteen years). It must have seemed a good solution for the bulk of his collection to find a home with, and complement significantly, the best coin collection in Spain.
Joaquín’s collecting instinct did not cease with the transfer of over 8000 coins to Madrid, however. The 1871 Cádiz Guide says that Joaquín’s private coin collection, ‘despite having enriched with some excellent pieces the National Museum and the Museum of the Academy of History’, continues to contain a good assortment which is ‘still increasing’! By then he was 83; he lived until 30 November 1874, dying at the age of 86, in the city in which he had spent his whole life.