After the Bourbon victory at the Battle of Almansa, in June 1707 Felipe V passed the Nueva Planta decree for the Kingdom of Valencia, thereby abolishing its previous jurisdictions and institutions and implementing new tax laws, establishing a military government and incorporating the kingdom into the Castilian province. Any hopes of reversing the situation were futile.

Between the 17th and 18th centuries, there was a scientific renewal in Europe that made observation and experimentation the basis of all knowledge. Valencia was one of the most active centres of this new scientific movement, but more so in social gatherings in the salon rather than in the university.

The Royal Economic Society of Friends of the Country is a cultural institution founded in Valencia in 1776, along with other related institutions founded in Spain during those years, with the purpose of implementing the ideals of the Enlightenment and modernizing society. The organization promoted economic and cultural activity and improved the region’s agriculture, industry and infrastructure.

During the 18th century, Valencia featured prominent printers who sought to divulge the progress of science and thought. However, with the outbreak of the French Revolution, the monarchy promoted laws that regulated the movement of foreign books in an attempt to halt the spread of ideas considered seditious.

In the midst of a deep social and economic crisis, the echoes of the French Revolution sparked in Valencia tensions that were marked with xenophobic riots. The ruling classes, in turn, listened with concern the alarming news from Paris.