AZARA, DON JOSE NICHOLAS DE (1731-1804), Spanish diplomat, was born in 1731 at Barbunales, Aragon, and was appointed in 1765 Spanish agent and procurator-general, and in 1785 ambassador at Rome. During the 13 years of his resi dence there he distinguished himself as a collector of Italian antiquities and as a patron of art. He was afterwards Spanish ambassador in Paris. In that post it was his misfortune to be forced by his government to conduct the negotiations which led to the treaty of San Ildefonso. Azara died, worn out, in Paris in 1804. His end was undoubtedly embittered by his discovery of the ills which the French alliance must produce for Spain.
His younger brother, DON FELIX DE AZARA (1746-1811), spent 20 years in South America as a commissioner for delimiting the boundary between the Spanish and Portuguese territories. He made many observations on the natural history of the country, which, together with an account of the discovery and history of Paraguay and Rio de la Plata, were incorporated in his prin cipal work, Voyage dans l'Amerique meridionale depuis 178r jusqu'en 18o1, published at Paris in 1809 in French from his ms. by C. A. Walckenaer.
Several sympathetic notices of Azara will be found in Thiers, Consulat et Empire. See also Reinado de Carlos IV. by Gen. J. Gomez de Arteche, in the Historia General de Espana, published by the R. Acad. de la Historia, Madrid, 1892, etc. There is a Notice historique sur le Chevalier d'Azara by Bourgoing (1804) .