Note 692 — Chapter I · JEWS.
Reading edition
Historia dos principaes Actos e Procedimentos da Inquisicão de Portugal, p. 256 (Lisboa, 1845).
In this year 1540 occurred the curious episode of the False Nuncio, Juan Pérez de Saavedra, a skilful forger and impostor, who presented himself with forged papal briefs, lived in great state in Lisbon for three months, and traversed the land for three more, collecting large sums, after the manner of nuncios. The Spanish Inquisition got upon his track; he was decoyed to the border, seized on Portuguese soil, January 23, 1541, and conveyed to Madrid. For this daring imposition he paid with nineteen years of galleys. He assumed the credit of introducing the Inquisition in Portugal, and this secondary imposture had currency nearly to our own times.—Llorente, Hist. crít. Cap. XVI, Art. iii, n. 1-21.—Páramo, pp. 227-32.—Illescas, Hist. Pontifical, Lib. VI, cap. iv,—Ant. de Sousa, Aphorismi Inquisit.; De Origine Inquisit. § 6.—Feyjoo, Theatro crítico, T. VI, Disc. iii.—Hernández, Verdadera Origen de la Inquisicion de Portugal (Madrid, 1789).
Salazar de Mendoza (Chronica de el Cardenal Don Juan de Tavera, pp. 119-21) puts Saavedra’s gains at 300,000 ducats and states that Paul III released him from the galleys by a special brief.