MARTINEZ DE LA ROSA, FRANCISCO DE PAULA (1787-1862), Spanish statesman and dramatist, was born at Granada and educated at the university there. He won popularity with a series of epigrams on local celebrities published under the title of El Cernenterio de momo. During the struggle against Napoleon he took the patriotic side, was elected deputy, and at Cadiz produced his first play, Lo que puede un empleo, a prose comedy in the manner of the younger Moratin. La Viuda de Padilla (1814), a tragedy modelled upon Alfieri, was less ac ceptable to the Spanish public. Meanwhile, the author became more and more engulfed in politics, and in 1814 was banished to Africa, where he remained till 182o, when he was suddenly re called and appointed prime minister. During the next three years he was the most unpopular man in Spain ; denounced as a revolu tionist by the Conservatives and as a reactionary by the Liberals, he alienated the sympathies of all parties, and his rhetoric earned for him the contemptuous nick-name of Rosita la Pastelera.
Exiled in 1823, he took refuge in Paris, where he issued his Obras literarias (1827), including his Arte poetica, in which he exagger ated the literary theories already promulgated by Luzan. Return ing to Spain in 1831, he became prime minister on the death of Ferdinand VII., ambassador at Paris in 1839-40, and at Rome in 1842-43. Martinez de la Rosa never rose above mediocrity either as a statesman or as a writer though the production of his La Con juration de Venecia (April 23, 1834), entitled him to be called the pioneer of the romantic drama in Spain. The play is more reminiscent of Casimir Delavigne than of Victor Hugo; but it was unquestionably effective and smoothed the way for the bolder essays of Rivas, Garcia Gutierrez and Hartzenbusch.