Rafael Casanova i Comes (; 1660 – 2 May 1743) was a Catalan jurist and supporter of Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor as a claimant to the Crown of Spain during the War of the Spanish succession. He became mayor of Barcelona and commander in chief of Catalonia during the Siege of Barcelona until he was wounded in combat while commanding La Coronela during the counterattack on the Saint Peter front on the last day of the siege, 11 September 1714. After the war he received a royal pardon for having supported the Habsburg claim to the Spanish throne. He recovered from his wounds, and continued his fight against absolute monarchy as a lawyer. It has been claimed that he is the author of the book Record de l'Aliança fet el Sereníssim Jordi Augusto Rey de la Gran Bretanya (Remembrance of the Alliance to George I of Great Britain) in which Catalonia reminds England of the Treaty of Genoa and their obligation to Catalonia. Life Rafael was born in Moià around 1660 and lived there until he turned 14 years old, his birth home now houses two museums, one which is dedicated to Rafael himself and the other being the Archaeology and Paleontology Museum – Caves of the Toll of Moià. He was one of eleven children of Rafael Casanova i Solà (1625–1682), a landowner of a rural estate in Moià, and Maria Comes i Sors († 1684), from Lliçà d'Amunt. At the time of his birth, the Casanova family enjoyed a solid financial position based on the usage of their land and the trade of grain and wool to supply the powerful textile industry in the subvegueria of Moianès. The Casanovas had a long tradition of participating in public affairs: his father was the head of a Catalan paramilitary organization called Sometent (dissolved 1978) in 1650, Councillor of the People (1652) and the head of the Moianès subvegueria (1659). The inheritance of the family lands was reserved to his brother, Francisco Casanova, as was the lineage itself. Thus, the young Rafael moved to Barcelona to study law, in 1678. At the age of 18 he had achieved a Doctor of Law degree. His father had died in 1682 and his mother two years later, in 1684. Three years after that, in 1687, his older brother Francis was named as an honorable citizen of Barcelona, as Moiá had the dignity