ABSTRACT
The letter that reached Pole’s desk on that January morning in 1555 identifies four of the people involved in gathering information for the broadsheet. Cardinal Juan Álvarez de Toledo who was also Bishop of Albano and Cardinal of Compostela had asked Pope Julius III to use his papal authority to ensure that the information was retrieved quickly. Julius therefore instructed his secretary Cardinal Innocenzo Ciocchi del Monte to write to Cardinal Pole to collect the details of the cases, authenticate them and send the information back to Rome. These four men had been for many years high profile power brokers in Vatican politics, involved closely with the Council of Trent and the newly reconstituted Inquisition. They were at the very heart of papal authority. This clearly was no ordinary broadsheet.
