Fernando Ramon Folch de Cardona, 2nd duke of Cardona, (circa 1470 – Barcelona, 13 November 1543), was a Spanish noble, 2nd Duke of Cardona since 1513 and Viceroy of Sicily.
The title Duke of Cardona was awarded by king Ferdinand II of Aragón in 1491 to his father Joan Ramon Folch de Cardona , 4th count of Cardona (1446–1513). His grandfather was Juan Ramon Folch de Cardona, 3rd count of Cardona, a.k.a.Juan Ramon Folch III, 3rd count of Cardona, 6th count of Prades, 3rd count of Cardona and Viceroy of Sicily (1477–1479).
He was also 2nd marquis of Pallars, 7th count of Prades, viscount of Villamur, Baron of Entenza, Great Constable and Admiral of Aragon as well as a Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece invested in 1519 by king Charles I of Spain. He was made also Grandee of Spain in 1520. For many, many years, this family was the only Catalan family, moved however to Andalusia, to hold a Grandee of Spain nomination.
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He married on 17 February 1498, at Epila, Zaragoza, Spain, with Francisca Manrique de Lara (deceased at Arbeca, prov. of Lerida on 21 August 1529), daughter of Pedro Manrique de Lara III, 1st duke of Nájera and the Portuguese Guiomar de Castro y Acuña.
Francisca was the sister of Antonio Manrique de Lara, 2nd duke of Nájera.
Don Fernando and Doña Francisca had no sons, but 4 daughters of whom, the eldest Juana Folch de Cardona y Manrique de Lara, born circa 1490, inherited thus her father's titles, including the honor of Grandee of Spain awarded in 1520, on his death in November 1534.
Juana had married in Segorbe, 1516 , Alfonso de Aragon, 2nd duke of Segorbe, (1489–1563), a.k.a. Alfonso de Aragon y Portugal, the couple having one son Francisco, later Francisco de Aragón, 3rd duke of Segorbe, a.k.a. Francisco de Aragon y Folch de Cardona and 4th duke of Cardona, and 4 daughters who used their family names as "Aragon y Folch de Cardona" and the eldest girl also called Juana as her mother and used for the Cardona's family remenbrance sake the imherited ruling title of Juana Folch de Cardona, 4th duchess of Cardona without the customary "Aragon" from her father, 2nd duke of Segorbe, of her male brother, Francisco, the 3rd duke of Segorbe or her sisters.
Eventually, Juana II, the 4t duchess of Cardona, sometimes described as 5th duchess, counting her brother named as Folch de Aragon but not Folch de Cardona, however, was the successor of Juana I , 3rd duchess of Cardona. She would marry Diego Fernandez de Cordoba, 3 marquis of Comares, a Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, a.k.a. "El Africano", because of his long residential times in Moslem surrounding areas in North Africa, strongholds of Imperial Spain. Born in Oran, now in Algeria, in 1524, he died in his lands of Arbeca, Lerida, Catalonia, in 1601.
Their son, Luis Ramon, died in 1596 before his mother Juana II, the 4th duchess of Cardona. Therefore, the 5th Duke of Cardona was since 1608 Juana's grandson, in 1588 Andalusian born Enrique Folch de Cardona, deceased in Perpignan, (France), December 1640.
Some of his brothers/sisters used however the family names "Aragon" from their Segorbe dukes ancestry, while the "Fernandez de Cordoba" name was used by others as well.
This is a fact probably alien to the European nobility but it was not very uncommon for the great Spanish nobility families of the Empire for several hundred years.
Thus, the study of notorious old family pressure groups and rather elusive "power lobbies" could be very complicated and erroneous or at least misleasding to process, without today's computer info retrievals, indeed, at least in the Spanish case.
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