Josep Antoni Balcells: la ambigüedad política de un catedrático de física-química

Josep Antoni Balcells was professor of physics and chemistry and head of
the College of Pharmacy in Barcelona during its whole existence. He warmly and publicly
welcomed the inauguration in 1820 of the constitutional period but later worked
openly for its liquidation. This alternation of loyalties brought him difficulties first in the
década ominosa and then during Esparteros regency, that he affronted with some
writings in his defence. Working in retrospect from the last of these, a little known booklet
entitled Dionisio y Honorato, the authors have described the sequence of events.