Born in Piedrahita, Ávila in 1507 - died in Lisbon in 1582.

Called the Grand Duke of Alba, he was a noble, military officer and Spanish diplomat, III Duke of Alba and of Huéscar, Marquis of Coria, Count of Salvatierra and of Piedrahita and Lord of Valdecorneja, among other titles, Grandee of Spain, Knight of the Golden Fleece.

He was a confidant of Carlos I and Felipe II of Spain, main butler of the two (1st minister) and a member of their Councils of State and War. He instructed the government of the duchy of Milán (1555-1556), the Kingdom of Naples (1556-8), the Netherlands (1567-1573) and the Kingdom of Portugal (1580-1582).

Regarded by historians as the best general of his time and one of the best ever. The House of Alba inherited the Alcolean manor in 1558. The current home of the Town Hall is the place where the Duke had prisons, storage, schools, the town oven, the market, etc.

Jurist and scientist. Born in 1774. Doctor from the University of Zaragoza, obtained the gold medal of the Zaragoza Royal School of Mathematics.

Dominated several languages ​such as Greek, Latin, French and Italian. An integral part of the intellectuals of the Enlightenment.

He was the first Spaniard who published a treatise on how to use the telegraph. Among his writings, particularly notable are: “The Art of Speaking From Afar” (Miedes, Zaragoza,1801).

Born in 1786. Military man who shone for his heroism in the Siege of Zaragoza during the War of Independence. At the war’s end he went to America, where he remained some years. With liberal political ideas he fought at the orders of Espoz y Mina against the Carlists during the First Carlist War. He had to flee to England in 1843, but returned to Spain years later to participate in the progressive revolution of 1854. The Espartero government appointed him lieutenant general of Galicia and three months later of the Canary Islands where he died in 1857.

Born in Alcolea in 1913. He studied Law and Philosophy at the University of Zaragoza. He received his Ph.D. with honors in Madrid. He was an academic of the Royal Spanish Academy of Language. Member of various societies - Spanish and foreign. Professor of Spanish Literature at the Faculty of Philology at the University of Barcelona.

His studies were devoted to the research of literary works from Don Juan Manuel to Jorge Guillén, devoting special attention to the Spanish writers of the Golden Age. His ambitious critical editions of the poetry of Francisco de Quevedo and Lope de Vega are irreplaceable. There are also many publications he made of Aragonese authors like the Argensola brothers or Baltasar Gracián. He died in Barcelona 2003.

Spanish writer. Born in Chalamera. Huesca in 1902. He had a rebellious spirit and one of self-educaion. He completed his military service in Morocco. On his return, he settled in Madrid and worked as a journalist for The Sun until 1929, when he began to write for more radical newspapers.

He participated in anarchist activities that always ended disappointingly. This, in turn, made him become a communist, but later during the Spanish Civil War he also reneged on this ideology. In 1938 he was exiled to France and then to Mexico and the United States.

His work, of realistic character, analyzed with rawness the social reality from a revolutionary perspective. He is the author of the autobiographical “Chronicle of the Dawn”(1942), “Requiem for a Spanish Peasant” (1960), among many others. He died in 1982 in San Diego, California.

Father Peralta was born in 1918. He studied at the Seminary of Lleída and later at the Society of Jesus. Bachelor of Theology, Philosophy and Romance Philology. He is one of the leading specialists on Baltasar Gracián. Author of a number of works, tirelessly carrying out research work until his death in 2001.

Pedro Saputo. Story of an Aragonese rogue. It was written by Braulio Foz, an Aragonese author born in 1781 in Fórnoles, Teruel, and died in 1865 in Borja. The origin of this popular traditional story and oral transmission is unknown.

An episode from the life of Pedro Saputo takes place in Alcolea. Pedro devised a ruse so that the village could sell the leftover wine from the abundant harvest. Saputo proclaimed that he would jump through the air from Ripas, which brought multitudes of people from far away. He postponed the experiment several times, and the impatience of those waiting drove them to drink the wine, right according to Pedro’s plan. Finally reaching the Ripas, he repeatedly announced loudly that he would throw himself off, but what really was thrown was his overcoat, leaving deceived viewers. To save himself from their outrage, he ran to take sacred refuge in the Sijena Monastery.