A Biographical Dictionary of Modern Rationalists/Aranda, Pedro Pablo Abaraca y Bolea, Count d'
Aranda, Pedro Pablo Abaraca y Bolea, Count d', Spanish statesman. B. Dec. 18, 1718. After some years in the army, and then as ambassador to Poland, he became Governor of Valencia (1764) and President of the Council of Castile and First Minister of Spain (1765). Thoroughly imbued with the ideas of Voltaire (with whom he corresponded) and the other French humanitarians, he carried out a large number of reforms and regenerated his decaying country. He curbed the excesses of the monks, lessened the power of the Inquisition, and expelled the Jesuits (1767). The clergy drove him from office, and they repeated the intrigue when he was recalled to power in 1792. Count d'Aranda, one of the greatest and most enlightened of Spanish statesmen, was imprisoned at Granada and threatened with trial by the Inquisition, though the plot was defeated, and he lived quietly on his estate for a few years. D. Jan. 9, 1798.