The Duke & Duchess of Soria Foundation: A Guardian of Spain’s Cultural Heritage

There are few institutions in Spain that carry their learning quite so lightly, or so well, as the Dukes of Soria Foundation (Fundación Duques de Soria de Ciencia y Cultura Hispánica). Established in 1989 by Her Royal Highness the Infanta Margarita of Spain and her husband, Dr Carlos Zurita, Duke of Soria, the Foundation has spent the better part of four decades championing the history, arts and sciences of the Hispanic world, and doing so with a decidedly European turn of mind.

Its most recent gathering offered an unusually affecting glimpse of what the Foundation means to those closest to it.

On Friday, 25 September 2026, His Majesty King Felipe VI travelled to Soria to preside over the presentation of the second International Hispanism Prize of the Dukes of Soria Foundation. The ceremony was held at the former Convent of Nuestra Señora de la Merced, the Foundation’s seat, in the old convent church where Fray Gabriel Téllez, known to posterity as Tirso de Molina, held his first office in the Mercedarian Order and, as its comendador, spent his final days.

It was, however, an occasion marked by one notable absence. The Infanta Margarita, who has been unwell, was unable to attend, and followed the proceedings from afar. It fell to Dr Zurita to represent the couple, which he did with characteristic grace, addressing the assembled company and joining his nephew in the presentation of the awards.

The prize, worth €50,000 and awarded every two years under the aegis of the Foundation’s Permanent Observatory of Hispanism, went this year to PhiloBiblon, the largest freely accessible bio-bibliographical database of texts written in the three medieval Romance languages of the Iberian Peninsula: Castilian, Catalan and Galician-Portuguese. Put forward by the University of Oxford, and supported by universities and institutions across North and South America, Italy, France, Germany and Spain, the project was judged by the jury, chaired by Professor Ruth Fine of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, to be the most accomplished of twenty-six candidacies, all of them excellent. The award was received by Professor Charles B. Faulhaber of the University of California, Berkeley, the project’s principal investigator and one of the most distinguished American Hispanists of his generation. Its roughly 328,000 records locate and describe manuscripts of medieval Spanish literature held in libraries the world over.

The King also conferred the Foundation’s distinction of Valedores del Hispanismo 2026, reserved for figures beyond the academy who have done much to cherish and promote Hispanic culture, upon Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, grandson of the painter and founder of the Museo Picasso Málaga, and his wife, Almine Rech Ruiz-Picasso, with Christine Ruiz-Picasso honoured posthumously.

His Majesty’s address was, for the most part, a considered meditation on Hispanism itself. What moves the Hispanist, he observed, is a particular “sympathy” for Spanish-language culture: “not merely an interest in our culture, but something more: the capacity to look at it from within, to reach its very heart… Hispanism leads us to know ourselves better.” He called upon Antonio Machado to describe Soria as an “ideal homeland” for Hispanists the world over, and recalled the town’s associations with Bécquer, Gerardo Diego and Concha de Marco.

Yet it was a more personal remark that lingered. The King said that the Foundation was “an institution I hold in especially high regard, too, because of the affection I feel for its honorary presidents, my aunt and uncle, Her Royal Highness the Infanta Doña Margarita and Dr Don Carlos Zurita.”

It was not, one gathers, a mere courtesy of protocol. In a speech otherwise devoted to scholarship, the King chose to pause on the bond of family and on the two people who have given so much of themselves to the cause of Hispanic culture. That the Infanta should have been absent made the tribute all the more touching; that Dr Zurita should have shared the day with his nephew, at the very institution the couple founded together, lent it a quiet dignity entirely in keeping with the Foundation’s character.

In founding the institution, the Infanta Margarita and Dr Zurita, whose title of Dukes of Soria was conferred in 1981, bound their names to one of the most evocative corners of Castile. From the outset, they envisaged a Spain whose heritage, while firmly rooted in its own traditions, would remain in lively conversation with the wider European world.

The Foundation has never been content merely to keep watch over the past. It has become a living forum for scholarship, education and public engagement, bringing together academics, artists and the wider public, and its work rests on four principal pillars.

The Foundation supports academic and research programmes across a broad range of disciplines, from history and literature to the natural sciences. By encouraging collaboration between fields, it ensures that the humanities and the sciences advance together rather than apart, a principle handsomely illustrated by this year’s prize, which the King described as an outstanding example of technology placed at the service of the humanities, all the more relevant in the age of artificial intelligence.

In partnership with respected publishers and academic institutions, the Foundation has produced a distinguished body of publications on Spanish history, culture and art. These serve both as valuable educational resources and as a means of carrying Spain’s cultural riches to a global readership.

The Foundation mounts exhibitions and cultural events that celebrate the diversity and inventiveness of Spanish artistic expression, building bridges between traditional and contemporary forms and nurturing a broader appreciation of Spain’s cultural vitality.

Through scholarships, research funding, academic exchanges with European institutions and the guidance of eminent scholars, the Foundation invests in young talent, ensuring that future generations remain connected to, and inspired by, their cultural inheritance.

Today, the Dukes of Soria Foundation stands as one of the cornerstones of Spain’s cultural and intellectual life, striking a judicious balance between the preservation of tradition and a forward-looking embrace of modern scholarship. The International Hispanism Prize, inaugurated in 2024 and now in its second edition, has given that mission fresh international standing.

The events of last month served as a gentle reminder that behind every great institution lie people of conviction. As the Infanta Margarita recovers, and as Dr Zurita continues to carry forward the work they began together, the Foundation remains what its founders intended: not merely a bridge between past and present, but a sure foundation for the cultural future of Spain and of the wider Hispanic world. In the King’s own words, may it long remain so.