An eight-year feud in which one of Europe’s most titled aristocrats took on her uncle over a multimillion-euro inheritance has been settled in Seville.
The court ordered the Medinaceli Foundation, whose president is Ignacio Medina, the 74-year-old Duke of Segorbe, to pay nearly €20 million (£17 million) to the four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren of Victoria Fernández de Córdoba.
The late Duchess of Medinaceli, known as Mimi, died in 2013 at the age of 96. She had four children but only the current Duke of Segorbe, has survived. Her grandchildren, led by Victoria de Hohenlohe-Langenburg, 24, who inherited the title of Duchess of Medinaceli after the death of her father, tried to settle with their uncle out of court by persuading him to sell four paintings from the family’s private art collection, one of the most impressive in Europe.
Medina, the late duchess’s youngest — and allegedly favourite — son, insisted on administering the fortune through the foundation, of which he is president.
The payout would appear to be a fraction of the fortune the foundation controls. As well as the Casa de Pilatos, a palace in Seville, a manor house in Galicia and a 17th-century hospital in Toledo — now a museum — its art collection includes six works by El Greco as well as The Young Saint John the Baptist, the only Michelangelo sculpture known to be in private hands. The grandchildren won the first round in the battle when a court in 2017 ruled in favour of Hohenlohe-Langenburg because she was the granddaughter of Mimi’s oldest child, awarding her the title of Duchess of Medinaceli.
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Ignacio Medina had claimed that he was the rightful heir of the title, whose bearer becomes the official head of the family. A recent change in Spanish law, however, meant that the eldest in line took the title, regardless of sex.
With 42 other titles, Hohenlohe-Langenburg, who is studying at a business school in Madrid, is one of the most titled aristocrats in the world. She and her younger brother, Alexandre, stand to inherit €1.4 million each.
Their co-claimants are their cousins, Victoria and Casilda Medina y Conradi, daughters of Mimi’s son Luis Fernández de Córdoba, who died in 2011. Along with Rafael and Luis Medina, the sons of the late Rafael Medina, duke of Feria and the model Nati Abascal, they stand to receive €4.2 million each.
The House of Medinaceli is one of the grandest families in Spain, tracing its origins back to the country’s foundations.
In the 14th century Bernal de Foix was made Count of Medinaceli by Henry II of Castille. In 1479 Isabel and Ferdinand, the first monarchs of a unified Spain, elevated the title to duke, awarding it to Luis de la Cerda y de la Vega, the fifth count, who fought on their behalf in the expulsion of the Moors.
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The family still has some issues to resolve. The foundation said last year that the duke’s six relatives had expelled Hohenlohe-Langenburg and her four cousins from the foundation for prioritising their personal economic interests over those of the foundation.
The national newspaper ABC said that none of the duke’s nephews or nieces had received an official notification of expulsion. The move, however, could lead to another legal battle.