Fernando el Católico (Sos, 1452-Madrigalejo, 1516) is considered one of the most important kings in the history of Spain , being the architect, together with his wife Isabel , of unifying the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon and laying the foundations of the current country. During his reign Granada was conquered and America was discovered .

He was king of Aragon, Castile, Sicily, Naples, Sardinia and Navarre , as well as regent of the Castilian Crown, due to the incapacitation of his daughter Juana I , after the death of Felipe el Hermoso .

Her figure, who inspired The Prince of Machiavelli , became very popular after the broadcast between 2012 and 2014 of the series " Isabel " by Tve, starring Michelle Jenner , in the role of the Queen of Castile, and Rodolfo Sancho in that of Fernando the Catholic.

Aragon claimed his outstanding historical role in 2016 with numerous acts on the occasion of the V centenary of his death.

His death was attributed at the time to the abusive use of aphrodisiac concoctions, based on testicles of bull and cantharidin , a substance produced by beetles.

This explanation, which later historiography did not question throughout the centuries, has been maintained until the present. Now a study points to heart failure as the "most plausible" hypothesis of the physical deterioration that ended the monarch's life.

THE END OF A MYTH

The historian Jaime Elipe and the doctor Beatriz Villagrasa are the authors of the study The end of a myth: clinical causes of the death of Fernando el Católico , which they have just published in Studium. Humanities Magazine of the University of Zaragoza and that this Sunday is being advanced by Heraldo de Aragón .

From March 10, 1513, the day he turned 61, the monarch "never felt healthy again." Shortly thereafter he had vomiting, which was followed in April by an "unknown fever" for which he had to take "medicine and had delusions."

This is how the Lombard humanist Pedro Mártir de Anglería , a member of the Court since 1487, describes it in his Epistolary. He narrates that when he had these initial symptoms he had ingested an aphrodisiac mixture supplied by his young wife, Queen Germana de Foix , with whom he had Married after Isabel la Católica died, to improve her sexual power and be able to become pregnant.

Almost three years later, marked by a physical and mental deterioration, Fernando II died on January 23, 1516 "in a rustic house" in a town in Extremadura when he marched to preside over the chapter of the Order of Calatrava .

As Elipe explains, "it was known that he had died from taking a concoction that had ruined his health, but no one had stopped to see if it was true or not. It is much juicier that he died of aphrodisiacs. We have seen that he does not hold It is an invention, a myth, they are invented anecdotes that are transmitted ".

CLINICAL TABLE

To draw a clinical picture, the two specialists have analyzed the letters of the aforementioned Lombard humanist, who collects up to 20 news items about the state of health of Fernando el Católico in the last three years of his life.

The study indicates that already in the autumn of 1513, Pedro Mártir showed his concern for the state of the monarch. He claimed that "he had neither the same countenance, nor the same attention to listen, nor the same kindness". And a month later, he referred to dyspnea or respiratory distress. Since then, the monarch would have "horror of living under the roof."

With the new year, gastric discomfort, "corns in the stomach", and burning would be added. In addition, in 1514 the secretary Miguel Pérez de Almazán , companion and faithful servant, died for almost all his life.

"But not only these evils consumed his life in the eyes of the courtier Pedro Martyr. According to him, and it was a common thought, the king abused what were at that time his two great passions: the hunt and the queen. that 'if it does not come off two appetites, very soon it will give its soul to God and its body to earth' ", as it is collected in the investigation.

In November, another of the relevant symptoms in his physical deterioration appeared, the edema, described as follows: "his asthma worsens and the mood swells him up."

A month later in another epistle, Anglería assured that "dropsy progressed, and neither with movement nor with rest did evil diminish, which gradually spread," while criticizing Fernando the Catholic's fondness for hunting. .

SENSATION OF DEATH

But the episode that could have cost him his life occurred on the night of July 18, 1515 , when he had a picture of acute dyspnea. "He almost drowned while he slept. A syncope and a cold clogged the fibers of his heart (...) he felt the sovereign choking and making horrible snores (...) He went to the din that the King formed, almost on the verge of expire. Transposed with lost speech, he twisted his eyes. They sprayed his face with cold water. He finally came to his senses, "describes the Lombard humanist.

From there, the information offered by the Epistolary "is limited to describing its deterioration and the feeling of imminent death" of the monarch.

With this clinical development, Villagrasa and Elpe address the diagnostic hypotheses among which a death due to abuse of aphrodisiacs is ruled out. In their study, they point out that it is not proven that bull's testicles cause such deterioration in health, "apart from digestive symptoms (nausea, vomiting ...) if they are ingested in a bad state".

Regarding cantharidin, they indicate that it lacks "any empirical basis", intoxication is not very frequent and most of its toxic effects "are related to its bladder property, producing blisters on the skin and mucosa with which it comes into contact "

A HEART FAILURE

For Dr. Villagrasa, the "most plausible" hypothesis is that Fernando II died of heart failure. And he explains that "respiratory distress is the first thing that appears, and a year and a half later, edema. With these two guiding symptoms and the evolution that he had had, he squared with heart failure, more than with kidney or liver failure; which were the three origins that one considers ".

He believes that "his heart would begin to fail and when that happens, those symptoms appear. The causes of why it fails can be thousands: an anemia, that he had a valve problem ... The monarchs had very meat-rich diets and could have cholesterol and be hypertensive. "

The two Aragonese researchers do not rule out that Fernando el Católico ingested concoctions to improve his sexual potency, but it was the cause of his death.

According to Villagrasa, "it is very improbable; it would have had to have been a much more acute development. It is a disease that from the beginning to the death more than two years elapse. We cannot say that it is the absolute truth, we would lack the autopsy."

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