Roman Catholic Cardinal. A native of Madrid, Francisco de Solís y Folch de Cardona was born to a noble family, his father being among others one of the founders of the Real Academia Española. His brother José was the viceroy of New Granada, later becoming a Franciscan friar. Receiving his first education through private tuition at home, Francisco soon proved to be a remarkable student, gifted with a rare intelligence. Stricken with a severe disease at the age of eighteen which caused the loss of his left eye, he had it replaced with a glass one. Other sources state that his lost his eye during a friendly sword duel with Infante Carlos de Borbón, future King Carlos III of Spain. Whatever the cause was, all existing portraits of his feature him in fact in profile in order to conceal this disability. Canon of the cathedral chapter of Málaga, becoming later its treasurer and dean, at the early age of thirty five he was appointed archbishop of the titular see of Traianopolis in Rhodope and appointed co-administrator of the metropolitan see of Seville, receiving his episcopal consecration on March 16, 1749 in Madrid. Transferred to the see of Córdoba, retaining personally the title of archbishop on September 25, 1752, he was promoted to the metropolitan see of Seville on November 17, 1755. Expanding and modernizing the archdiocesan seminary, he had the metropolitan cathedral rebuilt and embellished along with the monastery of of the Capuchin nuns. At the instance of King Fernando VI of Spain, Pope Benedict XIV created him cardinal priest in the consistory of April 5, 1756, with King Fernando himself imposing on him the red biretta sent over to Spain by the Pope, later receiving the title of Ss. XII Apostoli from the Pontiff on June 26, 1769. While in Rome in order to participate in the conclave of 1774-1775, which ultimately elected Pius VI to the papacy, the Cardinal was afflicted with a sudden fever which soon developed in pneumonia, leading to his death in a few days. Laid to rest in a triple coffin in his title without the construction of any memorials in order to await possible decisions from his relatives in Spain, his heart was sent over to Seville in a crystal urn and buried in the local Capuchin church which he had had reconstructed during his episcopate, where it remains preserved with affection contemporaneously. With no impositions ever arriving to the Conventuals who had his body buried in their church, the latter remains in Rome to this day, in oblivion.