Economist, politician and doctor in law (1840). 

Figuerola taught Political Economics in the Central University of Madrid. He founded the Sociedad Libre de Economía Política in 1857, as a member of the Real Academia de Ciencias Molares y Políticas (for which he was the first president, from 1898 until 1903). He was also part of the Institución Libre de Enseñanza (created in 1876).

He was finance minister during the provisional government of General Francisco Serrano in 1868. He signed the decree establishing the peseta as Spain’s sole official currency. He was close to Joan Prim.