She is 26 years old and has almost fifty titles recognized in Spain – 43 to be precise – making the young Victoria de Hohenlohe, Duchess of Medinaceli, the noblewoman with the most titles in Europe. Her name – if we ignore the titles – is perhaps not entirely well known, as the discreet aristocrat has, for various reasons, always preferred to stay out of the tabloid pages that filled her ancestors. However, these weeks the Duchess of Medinaceli appeared in various media due to her wedding to the financial analyst Maxime Corneille this Saturday, October 14th. It will be in the Church of San Miguel in Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz). However, it is striking that he will not say “I do” in any of the impressive architectural gems of the Medinaceli House – which includes several palaces, including La Casa Pilatos in Seville; the Oca Palace in Pontevedra; or Tavera Hospital in Toledo. The properties belong to the Casa Ducal de Medinaceli Foundation, chaired by Ignacio Medina, Duke of Segorbe, who has been in conflict with the family’s heirs for years. Because titles are one thing and assets are another.
Victoria de Hohenlohe is the granddaughter of Victoria Eugenia Fernández de Córdoba y Fernández de Henestrosa (Madrid, 1917 – Seville, 2013), the eighteenth Duchess of Medinaceli, and Rafael Medina y Villalonga, Duke of Alcalá de los Gazules (Bilbao, 1905 – Seville ). , 1992). Of the four children of this marriage, only one survives, Ignacio Medina, the bride’s great-uncle, who was responsible for managing the family assets and who, in 2021, against his mother’s last wishes, expelled his nephews from the family. Foundation for suing the Foundation itself in court to obtain its share of the legitimate income. The couple’s other three children appeared regularly in gossip magazines and became one of those lore of the aristocracy who littered the news with scandal. The most notorious case was that of Rafael Medina, Duke of Feria and ex-husband of socialite Naty Abascal, who was convicted of corruption of minors and drug trafficking, went to prison in 1993 and died of a barbiturate overdose in 2001. Luis, Duke of Santiesteban, died in 2011 and Ana Medina, the couple’s firstborn, died in Madrid in 2012.
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After the change in the Spanish law on the succession of noble titles in 2006, which established the right to the firstborn son and not to his gender, the Duchy of Medinaceli, one of the most important noble titles in Spain, passed to Ana Medina’s son, Marco von Hohenlohe-Langenburg, father of the bride.
Marco married the German Sandra Schmidt-Polex, with whom he had two children, Victoria and Alexander, the result of this union that lasted from 1996 to 2004. Victoria was born on March 17, 1997 in Malaga, although after her parents divorced, both she and her brother moved to live with their mother in Munich. He returned to Spain to study international relations at the Instituto de Empresa in Madrid and later completed a master’s degree in conflict, security and development at Kings College in London. According to her LinkedIn profile, the Duchess works at MJ Hudson as a responsible investment analyst and advisor.
King Felipe VI attended the funeral of the Duke of Medinaceli, which took place in Madrid on September 6, 2016. In the picture from left to right and next to the king: Pablo and Flavia Hohenlohe, brothers of the Duke, and their children; Victoria and Alexander, along with Pablo’s wife María del Prado Muguiro.Pool (Getty Images)
In August 2016, tragedy struck again in Medinaceli when Marco died in Seville at the age of 54, after spending days in a coma in a hospital in the capital Seville following a long illness. After her father’s death, Victoria became the youngest duchess in the history of the House of Medinaceli. Two years later, at 21, she became the person with the most noble titles in all of Europe – of the 43 she holds, 10 are linked to Grandeza de España, which she considers a direct descendant of King Alfonso The Ministry of Justice published this information in the official state gazette and reported that the young woman was also officially Marchioness of Priego, Marchioness of La Torrecilla, Marchioness of Camarasa, Marchioness of Aytona, Duchess of Tarifa, Duchess of Denia and Duchess of Camiña, Duchess of Alcalá de los Gazules and Countess of Santa Gadea. Victoria thus managed to acquire some titles that had fallen to her uncle – and which she asserted in court – the manager of all the family assets.
“Allergic to the media,” as the Duchess is defined in “Hello!”, occurs in rare cases. Pictured at the wedding of Casilda Medina and Ignacio de Loyola Crespi in Seville in 2017.Europa Press Entertainment (Europa Press/Getty Images)
In the magazine Hello! They define her as a “media allergy sufferer”, although her name has appeared in recent years along with many of her cousins, including the Medina brothers, children of Naty Abascal, due to their dispute over the estate with their great uncle. and the Medinaceli legacy. The final, appealable judgment ruled in favor of the grandchildren and great-grandchildren against their uncle, the president for life of the foundation that manages, among other things, the Casa Pilatos in Seville (in addition to lands and numerous works of art), and it was reported that the heirs received an inheritance in Amount of almost 20 million euros will be received. He is neither present nor expected at the wedding, also taking place at the Salto al Cielo estate, a farmhouse in the Jerez countryside, and attended by members of the most important noble houses of our country, but the cry of “Long live the.” Couple!’ It will not sound in any of their palaces.