This extract from Nobilities of Europe (ref 32) contains the only rationale we could find as to how the Jamaican Lousadas could have inherited in Spain the moribund Italian title of the Duque de Losada but as will be seen below the rationale has at least 8 flaws but has the one virtue - that it might have deflected questions on how the title was acquired! The basic facts - that the Duque's title was created in Naples in 1741, but the King and the Duque left Naples for Madrid in 1759, where the Duque died with no offspring in 1783 - are not in dispute in the following extract:

But in this extract Emanuel is described as a cousin of the Duque de Losada, which cannot have been true (see note 7 below) no matter whether it is referring to Emanuel #41 or his grandsons Emanuel #87 (1744-1832) or Emanuel #135 (1743-97). In any case this description of the Baruch Lousada relationship with the Duque varies from that given in the odd family tree, Burke's Peerage and the 1861 letter of Emanuel #93 (see note 5 below). The extract refers to some London Baruh Lousadas namely Jacob #36, a son of Emanuel #41, and especially mentions Jacob's son Emanuel #87 who, perhaps with an eye to the social status attending signs of nobility, obtained a grant of arms in 1777 at a time when the Duque who died in 1783 was still alive. However the suggestion that Jacob #36 was 2nd or 3rd de jure Duque is peculiar for Jacob had an older brother Aaron #125 of Jamaica who died after him in 1768 (see note 6 below) and Aaron's son Emanuel #135 outlived the Duque; Jacob clearly was never in the line of succession! Of course invoking Jacob #36 and Emanuel #87 in this context served neatly to bring Emanuel #87 and his grant of arms into the story. But a subtle problem arose in so doing - for Emanuel #87's grant of arms did not infringe the Duque's having key points of difference! This was inconveniently the opposite of the Lousada Dukes' desire to use the Duque's coat of arms; they pragmatically solved this problem by using a coat of arms identical to neither Emanuel's nor the Duque's but similar to both; nobody seems to have noticed - until we did! For completeness we point out a minor inaccuracy (see note 1 below).

There is of course no doubt about the (non-hereditary) elevation of the Duque to Grandee status. However the 'special remainder' of 1760 - said above to be attached to this elevation - does not appear in official Madrid records at the Archives of the Ministry of Justice (ref 164) or the Archives of the Royal Palace (ref 168). Hence the 'special remainder' probably does not exist. In addition the above text has the following flaws. (1) No reason was given for the bequest which is an important omission given the following 7 difficulties. (2) Emanuel could not have been a cousin. (3) Emanuel #41 was born in 1682 and was probably not alive in 1760 and of course 1783 while his grandsons Emanuel #135 and Emanuel #87 were Jewish teenagers in Jamaica and London respectively in 1760. (4) The bequest would have been conditional on the Duque not producing a son in his remaining 23 years - a most peculiar bequest! (5) It passed over the Duque's younger close relatives - Jovellanos (the son of a first cousin) was one who benefited from the Duque's patronage and Don Jude son of the Duque's brother Don Sancho was another and he took the Duque's job in 1783; the ancestry of these young relatives of the Duque can be seen here. (6) The special remainder amounted to a change in the Duquedom and was equivalent to a fresh grant; it would thus have required the consent of the King of Spain and his relative on the Naples throne and there was little chance of that (see note 4 below). (7) A further flaw concerns the Duque's property requirement (see note 2 below). (8) The confirmation of 27 May 1848 also does not appear in official records. If as seems likely the 'special remainder' did not exist then the later references to it were a fabrication and formed a small but important part of the service for which Isaac paid - perhaps it was Juan Antonio Jimenez y Alvarez, a Spanish herald (ref 164) who advised on this and who prepared the lurid documents found in the 2nd Duke's papers in the Molyneux-Seel collection. Our discussion incidentally reveals a complete lack of critical review by the nobility authority, and perhaps the most obvious illustration of this is that while the Duque's title was 'de Losada', the above extract claims it was 'de Losada y Lousada'! The Lousada Dukes used this odd name.

The above extract admittedly represents an advance over the Burke's Peerage version of the family's noble ancestry in that it openly addresses the Italian dimension, which was footnoted in Burke's but not discussed by Emanuel #93 in his handwritten draft of the Burke's entry nor in the odd family tree (see note 3 for our suggestion as to when it was realized the title was Italian). But the claim that Italy was the original country of the Baruch Lousadas is not strictly true - they were Portuguese, probably originating in Spain and perhaps returning there. However in the period around 1640 they were certainly in Livorno before their dispersal throughout the north Atlantic. Dispersal from Livorno has not been widely known until our work, for the traditional family history does not go back beyond Jamaica - not even to Barbados from whence they came to Jamaica around 1705. The text is accordingly vague as to where in Italy the family originated - but the Duque was certainly ennobled in Naples and his title Italian, something confirmed in ref 164. Revealingly, Emanuel #93 requested from the Spanish authorities a copy of the Italian title deeds (see note 3 below)! There is an apparently authoritative but unclear and probably empty reference to Emanuel #41 being recognised as a Count (by whom?), but this probably was only intended to further suggest an Italian link between the Baruch Lousadas and the title of Duque de Losada. Perhaps it was the acquisition of the title of Marquis of San Miniato in 1846 by Francis Baruh Lousada #96 which was the driving force toward making the story more Italian - Emanuel #93 is suggested to have been motivated by dislike of being upstaged by a younger brother. San Miniato, like Livorno, is in Tuscany, but this relative proximity is not exploited in the text.

 Notes:

1. It is a slight inaccuracy to say that Isaac #92 was a cousin of Emanuel #87 for it was his father Emanuel #135 d1797 who was the cousin and also brother-in-law of Emanuel #87 d1832.

2. See ref 164 for the property requirement - and the absence of a date for it to be satisfied by. These soft terms were a reflection of the King's great desire to ensure the Duque's services were secured. The Duque was of course Spanish, had returned to Spain in 1759, and once a Grandee and able to serve the King had a diminishing incentive to acquire such an Italian property and probably never did. There is no reason to assume beneficiaries of the 'special remainder' should have been offered similar soft terms, given that they were not close family and the circumstances meant in effect that a fresh grant of title was required.

3. It is possible that the Baruch Lousadas only realised the title was in fact Italian years after the Spanish herald was engaged. For his part, the Spanish herald possibly realised that being Italian it would be difficult for Spaniards or indeed anyone to formally acquire the title and deprive the Baruch Lousadas from what they thought they were paying good money to access. In any event, not having the Italian title deeds Emanuel requested them in his letter of 20 Apr 1861 (ref 164). This of course shows how far removed he was from actually holding the title, but the letter may have been a skilful manoeuvre aiming to create a 'paper trail' linking him to Italy. By the time Emanuel #93 made his request, Spain would have had no influence over the Two Sicilies by now attached to the Kingdom of Sardinia as part of the Risorgimento. Naples was the capital of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, which apart from interruptions like Napoleonic France's brief rule of Naples, remained Spanish until 1861 when Garibaldi took it in the name of Italian unification. But Naples is a long way from Livorno, and it would have been difficult to construct a convincing story linking the two. There is no evidence in Madrid of a Spanish request to Naples on the Duquedom.

4. At the time it is suggested above that the Baruch Lousadas were royally favoured, they were Jewish. But the Sephardic Jews, and local New Christians, had backed the wrong side in the War of the Spanish Succession and the Spanish Inquisition was re-awakened in 1720s much to the cost of the Spanish New Christians. Before then, Spain suffered great economic damage at the hands of the Sephardic Jews, perhaps first evident during the 1609-21 truce between Holland and Spain, but after the truce Amsterdam and Hamburg Jews, with the help of their New Christian agents in Southwest France, Spain and Portugal, continued by conducting illegal trade through leaky borders, shipping under false names and by many other tactics. Then, around the time of the 1647 bankruptcy of the crown, there was an exodus from Madrid of 40 or more wealthy Portuguese New Christian families (ref 123 pp229-35) to Amsterdam in particular. The Baruch Lousadas were linked with several of these families. The wealth the families exported was an economic cost bitterly resented by Spain especially since it was largely generated through service to the Crown itself (tax farming, financing the Spanish Army of Flanders, and provisioning). The Jews of Holland and England, whose efforts were augmented by those Jews who emerged from the exodus of the 1640s, proceeded to extract immense profits from trade with Spanish America, a trade which Spain itself had dearly sought to monopolize; indeed this prospect was why England in the form of Cromwell and Charles 2 was so keen to welcome the Sephardic Jews in the mid 1600s! The Baruch Lousadas especially in Curacao and Jamaica played a part in the trade. We note that Portugal in 1737 declined to appoint the 4th generation of the Curiel/Nunes da Costas to continue the esteemed diplomatic service of the 3 preceding generations of that family (ref 123 pp500-1) because they were Jewish; and that this disqualification was also possessed by the Baruch Lousadas!

5. In his 20 Apr 1861 letter (see note 3 above) Emanuel states that his grandfather Emanuel ie Emanuel #135 was Sumiller de Corps, an extraordinary blunder which contradicts the above extract from Ruvigny. We know the immediate genealogy of both men and they are distinct individuals.

6. Jacob died in 1752; Aaron was the father of Emanuel #135 and thus grandfather of the 1st Lousada Duke Isaac #93 1784-1857. Curiously Isaac's birth followed soon after the Duque's death, and the birth of Emanuel #142 1783-1854 (nephew of Emanuel #87 and Emanuel #135) fell between the two dates.

7. See the family tree comparison here.