TARANCON, EMANUELE GIOACCHINO. — Cardinal, b. at Covarrubias, diocese of Sigüenza, 20 March 1782, d. at Seville, 25 Aug. 1862.
After holding the offices of professor of law and rector of the University of Valladolid and counsellor of the Royal Academy of Mathematics and Noble Arts, he was named (1822) vicar capitular and later (1824) vicar general in the same diocese. He was subsequently deputy to the Cortes for the province of Soria (1835), senator and vice-president of the Senate (1836), member and then president (1839) of the Commission charged with examining affairs of Cuba. In 1841 he was appointed president of the Monte di Pietà of Madrid and three years later was called to direct the studies of the future Queen Isabella II and of her sister the Infanta Luisa Fernanda, for whose instruction he wrote an interesting treatise on ancient and modern history. Elected bishop of Zamora in 1847, he was transferred the same year to the see of Córdoba and during this period took a prominent part in the negotiations for the stipulation of the Concordat between the Holy See and Spain, which was the principal work of the nuncio Brunelli, later a cardinal, and was promulgated in 1851. Prom
(from M. and V. Viale, Arazzi e t. antichi, Turin 1926, pl. 118) DRAGON CARPET — A so-called Armenian carpet with stylized dragons, from the Caucasus (18th cent.) — Genoa, collection of Pietro Barbieri.