:''This person should not be confused with
Pedro Pablo Abarca de Bolea, Count of Aranda
Pedro Pablo Abarca de Bolea y Jiménez de Urrea, 10th Count of Aranda (1718 in Siétamo, Huesca – 1798 in Épila, Saragossa), was a Spanish statesman and diplomat.
Early life
He began ecclesiastical studies in the seminary of Bologna bu ...
.''
Pedro de Aranda was a
Bishop of Calahorra
A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution.
In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...
and President of the
Council of Castile
The Council of Castile ( es, Real y Supremo Consejo de Castilla), known earlier as the Royal Council ( es, Consejo Real), was a ruling body and key part of the domestic government of the Crown of Castile, second only to the monarch himself. It ...
in the latter part of the fifteenth century, and a victim of the persecutions of
Marranos
Marranos were Spanish and Portuguese Jews living in the Iberian Peninsula who converted or were forced to convert to Christianity during the Middle Ages, but continued to practice Judaism in secrecy.
The term specifically refers to the charg ...
. His father,
Gonzalo Alonzo, who was a ''
converso
A ''converso'' (; ; feminine form ''conversa''), "convert", () was a Jew who converted to Catholicism in Spain or Portugal, particularly during the 14th and 15th centuries, or one of his or her descendants.
To safeguard the Old Christian po ...
'', one of the
Jew
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...
s who embraced
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
in the period of
Vicente Ferrer during the early years of the fifteenth century, adopted the life of an ecclesiastic. Aranda's brother, too, earned
episcopal honors, being placed at
Montreal, Sicily.
Torquemada, the
inquisitor-general
The Inquisition was a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy, conducting trials of suspected heretics. Studies of the records have found that the overwhelming majority of sentences consisted of penances, ...
, in the course of the Marrano persecutions, brought against Pedro the charge that his father had died a Marrano. A similar accusation was made at the same time against another bishop,
Juan Arias Davila, of
Segovia
Segovia ( , , ) is a city in the autonomous community of Castile and León, Spain. It is the capital and most populated municipality of the Province of Segovia.
Segovia is in the Inner Plateau (''Meseta central''), near the northern slopes of th ...
. The inquisitor-general demanded, therefore, not only that the bones of the deceased suspects should be exhumed and burned, but that their sons, too, should be disgraced and deprived of their estates.
Pope Sixtus IV
Pope Sixtus IV ( it, Sisto IV: 21 July 1414 – 12 August 1484), born Francesco della Rovere, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 9 August 1471 to his death in August 1484. His accomplishments as pope include ...
, however, resented such summary degradation of high