Joan Gaudí, the first of the lineage (s. XVII)

Joan Gaudí was a merchant born in the Kingdom of France, Saint-Flour's Bishopric, in a population of name Saint Santin still not identified. He was a legitimate child of Antoni and of Joana. He was one more of the very numerous Occitan emigration that in the XVIIth century Catalonia received. In 1631 already he was living in Riudoms. It was the epoch of two Franciscans very known from Riudoms: the venerable Pere Ortigues and the blessed Bonaventura Gran. Joan Gaudí married on November 26, 1634 the neighbour of Riudoms Maria Escura. They had several children: Antoni (baptized on December 22, 1635); Anna Maria (baptized on June 11, 1637); a son whose gestation did not prosper; and Joan (baptized on January 22, 1640), which was the Heir. Maria Escura died in a not known date and on June 10, 1647 the widower Joan Gaudí married in the second nuptials with also neighbour of Riudoms Caterina Esquer. With his second wife, the Occitan dealer had four children: Maria (baptized on August 12, 1648); Francesc (baptized on April 23, 1650); Joan (baptized on April 30, 1653); and Andreu (baptized on November 30, 1654). The historian Joan Torres Domčnech has found Joan Gaudí's long testament, written on April 21, 1638, probably before starting a long trip, dangerously for the situation general or related to the same one. Catalonia's ways were infected by the racketeering; and the Spanish Monarchy, governed by the count-duke of Olivares, was in foot of war with Catalonia -that would explode in June of 1640- and in war opened from 1635 with the Kingdom of France, governed by the cardinal Richelieu, there being disputed Europe’s hegemony, which would remain concentrated in favour of the latter on the peace of Westphalia (1648). The testament is in Catalan language, with calligraphy and perfect syntaxes, though with some Occitan word that escapes from him; and according the Catalan civil law. Of this document of his own hand, it can be deduced characteristics of the personality of the first Gaudí, of Occitan mother language, which somehow will repeat themselves in the last one of the saga: he stopped his population of origin to look for fortune in other horizons; Catalan rapidly, including the name and the surname; his activity was developing among Riudoms and Reus; he was an educated person, used to writing and to the juridical steps; he was a responsible and meticulous person; he was a lover of the family; he was a bold person. And he was a deeply religious person: he instituted pious foundations with his goods in suffrage of his soul and of his family and wanted to die with the Franciscan habit and to be buried in the convent of the above mentioned order in Riudoms (today eliminated, closely of the Mas de la Calderera).

Josep Maria Tarragona, October 5, 2006
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