Ricardo Aldaya

Don Ricardo Aldaya’s arrival at the Fortuny hat shop in 1914 brings the power of Barcelona’s elite into the life of a young apprentice: impressed by Julian Carax’s irreverence, he doubles his order and uses his influence to secure Julian a place at San Gabriel’s School alongside his eldest son, Jorge. His patronage opens a door into the Aldaya world, where Julian first encounters a scale of wealth far beyond anything he has imagined.

Identity and Background

By October 1914, Don Ricardo Aldaya is among the richest men in Barcelona and Spain. His textile empire extends across Catalonia, while his reach also encompasses banks, landed estates, the provincial council, city hall, ministries, the bishopric, and the port customs service. The account presents his economic power and political influence as intertwined: he can command both commercial resources and the institutions surrounding them.

His public manner is imposing. With extravagant moustaches and kingly sideburns, he is a man people fear, and his arrival at the Fortuny shop initially seems to confirm the distance between a magnate and an ordinary tradesman. Yet the story complicates that image: Aldaya is weary of being feared and flattered, and responds not with anger but with delight when Julian treats him without deference.

The Fortuny Hat Order

Aldaya enters the shop seeking an extensive wardrobe: six top hats, a dozen bowlers, hunting caps, and a hat for the Cortes in Madrid. The order is a substantial opportunity for Antoni Fortuny’s modest business. Julian understands how much depends on it and works with his father to fulfil it, skipping school and spending as many as eighteen or twenty hours a day in the workshop.

The work briefly transforms the household’s mood. Fortuny is elated by the prospect that Aldaya will recommend his shop to influential friends; he even buys Sophie a dress and new shoes, the first in fourteen years. In a moment of pride, he embraces Julian and says that his grandfather would have been proud of them. Aldaya’s commission therefore matters not only as a business contract but as a rare source of hope and recognition for the Fortuny family.

Julian’s First Encounter with Aldaya

The order requires Julian to take Aldaya’s measurements. When the magnate arrives to be measured by a fourteen-year-old, he objects to being handled by a child. Julian answers with a joke about Aldaya’s unusually large head, comparing it to a bullring and warning that without hats it might be mistaken for a street plan of Barcelona. Fortuny is mortified, but Aldaya unexpectedly bursts into laughter.

That response reveals a private dissatisfaction beneath Aldaya’s intimidating public position. He dislikes sycophants, cowards, and displays of weakness, and he is tired of people making themselves submissive in his presence. Julian’s cheek and composure offer the magnate something he does not get from the people who ordinarily surround him. Aldaya calls the boy talented, doubles the order, and returns to the shop each day for fittings, enjoying Julian’s jokes and stories. The encounter gives Julian’s candour immediate practical consequences: it wins him the magnate’s favor.

Patronage and the Aldaya World

Aldaya’s interest extends beyond the hats. He insists that Julian’s talent must be cultivated and supported rather than left to stagnate, despite Fortuny’s protests that his son is a poor student with a bad attitude and can always earn an honest living in the shop. Aldaya says he will go to San Gabriel’s School and ensure Julian is admitted to the same class as Jorge, his eldest child. The school serves Barcelona’s social elite, and Fortuny is startled by the prospect and worried about the cost.

Later, Aldaya takes Julian to the family home on Avenida del Tibidabo. Julian travels past mansion-like residences, enters through the gates amid a household of servants, and crosses a grand interior of three floors, a vaulted hall, a marble staircase, and a room lined with books from floor to ceiling. The visit gives concrete form to the social world Aldaya can open to him: a realm of conspicuous wealth and privilege, previously outside Julian’s experience. Aldaya’s intervention places Julian in proximity to Jorge and the Aldaya family, making this first patronage a decisive point of entry into the story’s larger history.