Baroja is a hamlet in the province of Alava in the district of
Peñacerrada. According to Fernández Guerra, it is an Iberian name
derived from Asiatic Iberia. I believe that I have read in Campión that
the word Baroja is compounded from the Celtic _bar_, meaning
mountain, and the Basque _otza, ocha_ meaning cold. In short, a
cold mountain.
The district of Peñacerrada, which includes Baroja, is an austere land,
covered with intricate mountain ranges which are clad with trees and
scrub live oaks.
Hawks abound. In his treatise on falconry, Zúñiga mentions the Bahari
falcon, propagated principally among the mountains of Peñacerrada.
My ancestors originally called themselves Martínez de Baroja. One Martín
had a son who was known as Martínez. This Martínez (son of Martín)
doubtless left the village, and as there were others of the name
Martínez (sons of Martín), they dubbed him the Martínez of Baroja, or
Martínez de Baroja.
The Martínez de Barojas lived in that country for many years; they were
hidalgos, Christians of old stock. And there is still a family of the
name in Peñacerrada.
One Martínez de Baroja, by name Juan, who lived in the village of
Samiano, upon becoming outraged because of an attempt to force him to
pay tribute to the Count of Salinas--in those days a very natural source
of offence--took an appeal in the year 1616 from a ruling of the
Prosecuting Attorney of His Majesty and the Alcaldes and Regidors of the
Earldom of Treviño, and he was sustained by the Chamber of Hidalgos at
Valladolid, which decided in his favour in a decree dated the eighth day
of the month of August, 1619.
This same hidalgo, Juan Martínez de Baroja, moved the enforcement of
this decree, as is affirmed by a writ of execution which is inscribed on
forty-five leaves of parchment, to which is attached a leaden seal
pendant from a cord of silk, at the end of which may be found the
stipulations of the judgment entered against the Municipality and
Corporation of the Town and Earldom of Treviño and the Village of
Samiano.
The Martínez de Barojas, despite the fact that they sprang from the land
of the falcon and the hawk, in temper must have been dark, heavy, rough.
They were members of the Brotherhood of San Martín de Peñacerrada, which
apparently was of great account in those regions, besides being regidors
and alcaldes of the Santa Hermandad, a rural police and judicial
organization which extended throughout the country.
In the eighteenth century, one of the family, my great-grandfather
Rafael, doubtless possessing more initiative, or having more of the hawk
in him than the others, grew tired of ploughing up the earth, and left
the village, turning pharmacist, setting up in 1803 at Oyarzun, in
Guipúzcoa. This Rafael shortened his name and signed himself Rafael de
Baroja.
Don Rafael must have been a man of modern sympathies, for he bought a
printing press and began to issue pamphlets and even occasional books.
Evidently Don Rafael was also a man of radical ideas. He published a
newspaper at San Sebastian in 1822 and 1823, which he called _El
Liberal Guipúzcoano_. I have seen only one copy of this, and that was
in the National Library.
That this newspaper was extremely liberal, may be judged by the articles
that were reprinted from it in _El Espectador_, the Masonic journal
published at Madrid during the period. Don Rafael had connections both
with constitutionalists and members of the Gallic party. There must have
been antecedents of a liberal character in our family, as Don Rafael's
uncle, Don Juan José de Baroja, at first a priest at Pipaon and later at
Vitoria, had been enrolled in the Basque _Sociedad Económica_.
Don Rafael had two sons, Ignacio Ramón and Pío. They settled in San
Sebastian as printers. Pío was my grandfather.
My second family name, Nessi, as I have said before, comes out of
Lombardy and the city of Como.
The Nessis of Como fled from Austrian rule, and came to Spain, probably
peddling mousetraps and _santi boniti barati_.
One of the Nessis, who survived until a short time ago, always said that
the family had been very comfortably off in Lombardy, where one of his
relatives, Guiseppe Nessi, a doctor, had been professor in the
University of Pavia during the eighteenth century, besides being major
in the Austrian Army.
As mementos of the Italian branch of the family, I still preserve a few
views of Lake Como in my house, a crude image of the Christ of the
Annunziatta, stamped on cloth, and a volume of a treatise on surgery by
Nessi, which bears the _imprimatur_ of the Inquisition at Venice.