Luis Fernández de Córdoba, 17th Duke of Medinaceli

Born as the only son of the 16th Duke of Medinaceli, Luis María Fernández de Córdoba y Pérez de Barradas, and his second wife Casilda Remigia de Salabert y Arteaga, 9th Marchioness of Torrecilla. He was baptised the day after his birth in the parish church of San Luis Obispo of Madrid. He was born posthumously to his father, who had died in a hunting accident some months earlier and as such he assumed the historical titles of the House of Medinaceli from birth.

His mother, who would become the 11th Duchess of Ciudad Real in her own right, remarried the politician Mariano Fernández de Henestrosa, 1st Duke of Santo Mauro, in 1884. Through them, Luis was a half brother to Rafael and Casilda Fernández de Henestrosa.

In 1911, he married Ana María Fernández de Henestrosa y Gayoso de los Cobos, lady-in-waiting of Queen Ena, daughter of the 8th Count of Moriana del Río, a Gentilhombre Grandee of Alfonso XIII. The ceremony took place in Madrid.

At his wedding in 1911

From his first marriage he had two daughters:

• Victoria Eugenia Fernández de Córdoba y Fernández de Henestrosa, 18th Duchess of Medinaceli (Madrid, April 16, 1917 - Seville, August 18, 2013)
• María de la Paz Fernández de Córdoba y Fernández de Henestrosa (Madrid, January 22, 1919 - Alcalá de los Gazules, October 3, 1998), who would become the 16th Duchess of Lerma in 1957

In 1938 his first wife Ana María passed away. He remarried on December 22, 1939, with María de la Concepción Rey de Pablo Blanco, with which he had a daughter:

• Casilda Fernández de Córdoba y de Pablo Blanco (Madrid, 1941 - Córdoba, April 19, 1998), 20th Duchess of Cardona

In 1929, he was granted the Order of the Golden Fleece by Alfonso XIII. The collar he had been bestowed with had once belonged to Louis Bonapart, Napoleon's younger brother.

He inherited his fondness for hunting and horse-riding from his grandmother Angela Pérez de Barradas y Bernuy, 1st Duchess of Denia and Tarifa — titles that he also held when his uncle Carlos María Fernández de Córdoba died. He was an indefatigable traveler, at the same time that he carried out numerous investigations, especially in the field of falconry, and founded the Spanish Museum of Trophy Hunting. In 1927 he was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences; His entrance speech was about birds of prey in falconry.

Considered one of the main exponents of big-game hunting in Europe, the duke made expeditions to British East Africa (1908-1909) and the North Pole (1910, 1921). In addition, he wrote numerous publications on hunting and nature, and in his palace in Madrid he founded a museum of natural history, the collection of which had to be transferred to the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936.

After suffering a myocardial infarction, Luis Fernández de Córdoba died on July 13, 1956 in the now disappeared Palace of the Duke of Uceda in Madrid.

Palace of the Duke of Uceda (later Medinaceli) in Madrid, home of Don Luis, c. 1875

He is buried in the Basilica of Jesús de Medinaceli in Madrid.

• Diario de mi viaje alrededor del mundo en 1907, 1915
• Catálogo de aves europeas de mi colección, 1915
• Cómo cacé la jirafa de mi colección venatoria, 1915
• Expedición ártica en el verano de 1910, 1919
• Notas sobre la cacería en el África oriental inglesa, 1919
• Ballenas, focas y similares, 1924
• Aves de rapiña y su caza, 1927
• Expedición ártica en el verano de 1921, 1929
• La profecía de la bruja, 1940
• El elefante en la Ciencia, la Mitología, la Tradición y la Historia, 1941
• Breve historial de las armas de caza, 1942
• La caza de las aves de rapiña, 1942
• El alce y su caza, 1943
• Las aves de rapiña en la cetrería, 1943

• Heraldry of Luis Fernández de Córdoba, 17th Duke of Medinaceli
• 
  Coat of Arms
  (1931-1956)

• List of Famous Big Game Hunters

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