[1] As a businessman, he undertook many projects that shaped modern Spain: railways, construction of entire neighborhoods, banking and investments; at the same time, he was associated with no small amount of political and corporate corruption.

[1] It was probably in Granada that he first met groups opposed to the absolutist regime of Ferdinand VII, including Mariana Pineda,[2] who became a martyr for the Spanish liberals when she was tried and condemned to death in 1831.

[1] That year Ferdinand VII died, bringing to power his wife, Maria Christina, as regent for the three-year-old queen Isabella II.

Among his associates over the next few years were Nazario Carriquiri, the Marquess of Marismas del Guadalquivir, Gaspar Remisa, José Buschenthal, Agustín Muñoz and the Rothschilds' agents in Madrid, Daniel Weisweiller and Ignacio Bauer.

[1] Salamanca had been saved from his own disastrous stock speculations when Francisco Serrano Domínguez convinced Isabella II to make him Minister of Finance.

[citation needed] As Salamanca's favors to his friends became public knowledge, he consorted with various generals who were plotting to overthrow the government.

[1] Five years later, he was in exile again,[1] characterized as a bestia negra ("black beast") by the new Progressive government that swept to power in June and July 1854 on the wings of unrest, ending the década moderada and beginning the bienio progresista.

[citation needed] There had existed until the celebrated 28 June [1854] a limited partnership for the exploitation of all agios [discrepancies in exchange rates], of all the business affairs for which the country had to pay with its blood.

Narváez and Agustín Fernando Muñoz, Duke of Riánsares (second husband of the queen mother Maria Christina) came to be his partners in a number of subsequent business ventures.

On 24 December 1845 the Sociedad del Ferrocarril de Madrid a Aranjuez (Madrid-Aranjuez Railway Company) was established[9] with a capital of 45 million reales.

[1] Queen Isabella II presided over the opening of the line and more than a thousand invitees enjoyed a generous party at Salamanca's personal expense.

[citation needed] When the news arrived that General Martín Zurbano had risen up in rebellion in Nájera, Salamanca and his associates announced it to sow panic.

The stock exchange, sensitive to any abrupt change in public affairs, plummeted, and Salamanca profited by some 30 million reales in a single day.

[citation needed] It was founded with capital of 100 million reales,[16] which it distributed generously as credit among Spain's emerging capitalist investors.

He was already far past his financial prime when the queen named him Marquess of Salamanca in 1863 and Count of los Llanos in 1864; the latter title made him a Grandee of Spain.

[citation needed] The building at what is now Paseo de Recoletos n.º 10 is owned today by the Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria and is used for art exhibitions.

He also owned extensive land in Los Llanos, the Palacio de Mitra in Lisbon, a hôtel particulier in Paris, and he rented a palace in Rome, each with an army of servants.

[citation needed] In the course of a life of luxury and sybaritic extremes,[18] José de Salamanca had been a lawyer, conspirator, mayor, judge, banker, underwriter of public works, theatrical impresario, director of businesses, engineer, agriculturalist, livestock rancher, government minister, senator, deputy, marquess, count, and Grandee of Spain.