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This paper aims to analyze how Arturo Pérez-Reverte claims the legacy of the Enlightenment in his historical novel Hombres buenos (2015). The history of two members of the Real Academia Espartóla, in charge of travelling to Paris in the hopes of obtaining all the volumes of the Encyclopedia and bringing them to Spain, allows Pórez-Reverte to create an original account of eighteenth-century Spain. Pórez-Reverte belongs to an intellectual tradition that depicts the Hispanic Enlightenment as inexistent, incomplete, insufficient, or unoriginal. At the same time, however, he keeps his distance from such tradition, by questioning the consensual image of a civilized and enlightened France, and by showing that Spaniards also participated in the creation and dissemination of the Enlightenment. This paper also analyzes how the fictitious account of the eighteenth century is nor only a defense of enlightened Spaniards, but also a way to express desires for the twenty-first century, especially regarding the political and linguistic unity of Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Religious freedom has always been considered to be a central issue in liberal and enlightened thought. Thus, attention has often been drawn to the shortage of observations on tolerance in the works of Spanish enlightened reformers, as also to the uncompromising prohibition of non-Catholic religions contained in the Cadiz Constitution of 1812. In recent years, some scholars have argued that, because of the absence of religious minorities in Spain, the dominating influence on Spanish society of the Catholic Church and Spain's insufficient openness to European culture, Spanish liberals did not really begin to appreciate and discuss religious freedom as an ideal until the periods of exile following from 1814 and 1823. This paper aims to show, however, through analysis of one of the most relevant Spanish journals of the eighteenth century, that the matter of freedom of religious belief was indeed debated in Spain during the reigns of Carlos III and Carlos IV and that, in spite of the threat of censorship, some Spaniards did dare to write and publish work in favour of religious tolerance during that period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]