Permission to publish a journal was granted to
Pedro Husson de Lapazaran, a Neapolitan printer. It was written in
Spanish and acted as an
official journal, publishing official notices. Around the turn of the 18th century readers began to demand content in
Catalan and during the period of Napoleonic rule it was temporarily published with parallel French and Catalan text. After the War of Independence, on 6 June 1814, the right to publish passed to
Antoni Brusi i Mirabent, and subsequently to his descendants, as a result of which it was popularly called
El Brusi. The journal's politics were monarchist and liberal-conservative; this policy meant that it survived in the short term, but began to be less influential following a reduction in press censorship. Apart from a few Catalan poems, the language was mostly Castilian, like most of the Catalan press of the time. However because most readers used Catalan the paper had to provide explanations of some terms. Many Catalan writers (for example
Joan Maragall) wrote in Castilian. A reduction in the level of censorship, other newspapers such as
La Vanguardia (1881) and
La Veu de Catalunya (1899)) challenged the pre-eminence of the
Diario de Barcelona. During the
Civil War the paper was seized and transformed into the organ of the
Estat Català, produced in Catalan by
Marcel·lí Perelló i Domingo. After the war it reverted to its previous owners. From 21 October it re-emerged as a worker-run bilingual edition. The paper, ceased publication in 1984, was acquired by the city of Barcelona the following year and transferred to the Grupo Zeta. From 1986 it was published entirely in Catalan. ==References==