Pedro Pablo Ibarra Y Bolea Aranda, count of, a Spanish statesman, born in Saragossa in December, 1718, died in 1799. He first served in the army, but subsequently devoted himself to the civil service. After officiating for seven years as ambassador of Charles III. at the court of Poland, he was appointed commander of the army in Portugal. Here he captured Almeida in August, 1762, and was afterward appointed captain general of Valencia. In 1765, after quelling an insurrection in Madrid, he was made president of the council of Castile, and soon after prime minister. He inaugurated a new municipal system, established schools, provided Madrid with a permanent garrison, strengthened the army and navy, advanced the industrial and agricultural interests of the kingdom, and reformed the financial condition of the bank of San Carlos. He established a law which made the sanction of the council of Castile requisite for the validity of the decrees of the Vatican, opposed the inquisition, and set up a political censorship in order to neutralize its influence. By a decree of April 2, 1767, the Jesuits were expelled from Spain, and their property confiscated.

The hostility of the clerical party, heightened by his confidential correspondence with Voltaire, who had urged him to persevere in his work of reform, forced him in 1773 to tender his resignation as prime minister. Accepting the post of ambassador at Paris, he became noted for his opposition to England, which had indeed always been the leading feature of his foreign policy. He prevailed upon Charles III. to join France in supporting the cause of America, and in 1783 was one of the signers of the treaty of Paris, which recognized the independence of the United States. In 1787 he returned to Spain, and in 1792 again became prime minister as successor of Florida Blanca; but under Charles IV. he was forced to surrender the place to the queen's favorite, Godoy. On occasion of the war with France, he expressed himself against its justice, and this remark was seized upon as a pretext to banish him from the capital.