The committee of Ministers today, the 30th, has C Royal Decrees awarding the Grand Cross of the Civil Order of Alfonso X Wise to ten other personalities, in recognition of their merits, among them Professor Ricardo Fernández Gracia, from the University of Navarra. Other awardees include Juan Velarde Fuertes, César Nombela and Plácido Arango.

The Grand Cross has a restricted character (500) and is awarded to Spanish or foreign individuals who have contributed in an extraordinaryDegree to the development of Education, science, culture, teaching or research.

Ricardo Fernández is Senior Associate Professor and Director of the Chair of Heritage and Art at the University of Navarra, where he carries out his professor and research work. He is the author of numerous articles on iconography, heritage, Renaissance and Baroque art, both in specialized journals and in conference proceedings of national and international congresses, and has participated in different programs of study in collective works. His publications include eight books on the bishop-virrey Juan de Palafox, and he has also studied the artistic facet of Sister María de Ágreda. He has also coordinated the Issue on the "Renaissance in Navarra" under the sponsorship the Institución Príncipe de Viana, and has been the curator of important exhibitions, among them that of Viceroy Palafox, which toured Madrid, Fitero, Burgo de Osma and Rome.

Lecturer at universities in different countries, he has made stays in research centers in Italy and Mexico. Professor Fernández has been part of the team that carried out the Monumental Catalog of Navarra and is a prominent member of several cultural institutions in Navarra.