Manuel Alonso Martínez (Burgos

Burgos

Burgos is a city of northern Spain, historic capital of Castile. It is situated at the edge of the central plateau, with about 178,966 inhabitants in the city proper and another 20,000 in its suburbs. It is the capital of the province of Burgos, in the autonomous community of Castile and León...

, 1827 - Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

, 1891) was a Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 jurist

Jurist

A jurist or jurisconsult is a professional who studies, develops, applies, or otherwise deals with the law. The term is widely used in American English, but in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth countries it has only historical and specialist usage...

 and politician, and the principal redactor of the Spanish Civil Code of 1888/89.

After working as a Burgos attorney, he entered public service in 1854 as a member of the Cortes

Cortes Generales

The Cortes Generales is the legislature of Spain. It is a bicameral parliament, composed of the Congress of Deputies and the Senate . The Cortes has power to enact any law and to amend the constitution...

. Serving as the minister for development, governor of Madrid, minister of finance and minister of justice in the time of 1855 to 1888, he was instrumental in pursuing the codification of Spanish civil law.

His widow, Doña Demetria Martín y Baraya, received in 1891 the title of Marchioness of Alonso Martínez.