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Duchess of Alba
	1926-2014
Spain's eccentric Duchess of Alba, one of the nation's richest women who had more titles than any other aristocrat on earth, has died. She was 88.
Maria del Rosario Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart passed away at her Duenas Palace in the southern city of Seville yesterday, a family spokesman said.
She had been moved to her home on Tuesday night after being taken to hospital with pneumonia.
Known for her frizzy hair and colourful dress sense, the duchess owned great swathes of real estate, palaces, great houses and treasures including paintings by Great Masters from Francisco De Goya to Diego Velazquez.
Her main title was Duchess of Alba de Tormes but she had more than 40 others due to a complex series of marriages by her ancestors, which made her the noble with the most officially recognised titles in the world, according to Guinness World Records.
She was born at the Liria Palace in Madrid on March 28, 1926.
A common legend about the duchess held that the king of Spain or Britain's Queen Elizabeth would have to curtsy to her because of all her titles.
But when Queen Elizabeth visited Madrid in 1988 the duchess dismissed the claim as a "fiction" and bowed before the British monarch.
The duchess was the "queen" of the gossip press in Spain, yet having her private life analysed in detail by the media did not bother her.
"If they forget you, you are nobody," the twice-widowed aristocrat told Spanish magazine Yo Dona in September 2011, a month before she married for the third time with Alfonso Diez, a civil servant 25 years her junior. The duchess had to work hard to overcome the opposition to that marriage by her children, whose own divorces and affairs have for years filled the pages of Spain's gossip magazines.
Diez renounced any claim to the duchess's wealth and just before the wedding she divided up much of her estate among her five sons and one daughter in her will.
She kept control over the assets - reputedly worth between €600 million (HK$5.83 billion) and €3.5 billion - until her death.
Her first marriage in October 1947 to Don Pedro Luis Martines de Irujo, son of the Duke of Sotomayor, was described by The New York Times as "Spain's most elaborate social event since the end of the monarchy".
Six years after the duke's death in 1972, the duchess scandalised Spanish high society by marrying a former Jesuit priest, Jesus Aguirre, who was 11 years younger than her and had been her confessor.
Her speech slowed after an operation in 2010 for water on the brain but that did not stop her from going to Thailand last year with her third husband despite the concerns of her children for her health.
Her vast wealth - it was said she could walk from the northernmost point of Spain all the way to the south coast without ever stepping out of her own lands - made her a target of claims that she enriched herself in part with European Union agricultural subsidies.


Obituary: Duchess of Alba, Spain

The duchess with Alfonso Diez at their 2011 wedding. Photo: Reuters

The duchess with Alfonso Diez at their 2011 wedding.Photo: Reuters

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Spain's eccentric Duchess of Alba, one of the nation's richest women who had more titles than any other aristocrat on earth, has died. She was 88.


Obituary: Duchess of Alba, Spain

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Spain's eccentric Duchess of Alba, one of the nation's richest women who had more titles than any other aristocrat on earth, has died. She was 88.

Spain's eccentric Duchess of Alba, one of the nation's richest women who had more titles than any other aristocrat on earth, has died. She was 88.