Pedro Folc de Cardona

Who is Pedro Folc de Cardona?

Pedro Folc de Cardona, an illegitimate son of Joan Ramon Folc de Cardona y de Prades, 3rd Count of Cardona, was bishop of Urgell, president of the Generalitat of Catalonia, editor of the Usatges de Barcelona, viceroy of Catalonia and archbishop of Tarragona.

Pedro's half-brother Joan Ramon Folc IV de Cardona y d'Urgell was ordered by King John II of Aragon to attack Hugo Roger III of Pallars, a cousin of Pedro's father. Eventually, after interventions in France and Italy, Hugo Roger III, Count of Pallars, was imprisoned at the Royal Prison Castle of Xàtiva, occupied also by famous and ambitious Spanish-Italian Cesare Borgia, where he died in 1509. As a token of both brothers' loyalty to old king John II of Aragon and his son, king Ferdinand II, lands and titles, as a Marquess of Pallars were passed to the 1st Duke of Cardona, Pedro de Cardona's legitimate brother.

We should take into account that in 1467, Pedro's half-brother had married Aldonça Enríquez, a sister-in-law of King John II and aunt of Ferdinand II as the sister of Juana Enríquez.

King John II's son, Ferdinand II, rewarded Bishop Pedro's brother Juan Ramon Folc IV, too, with the title of 1st Duke of Cardona, 1491, while Pedro stayed as a Bishop of the very important episcopal See of Urgell till 1515, moving him then to the position of Archbishop of Tarragona.