SOSA (SOSSA, SOUSA), DE:

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By: Joseph Jacobs, Schulim Ochser

Envoy of King John III. of Portugal to the court of Pope Paul III. (1534-50). While he was at Rome the Maranos, seeking relief from the severity of the Inquisition, urged the pope to send a papal nuncio to Portugal in their interest. This measure was opposed by the court, and, at first, likewise by the pope; but the Jewish envoy finally succeeded in gaining the acquiescence of the latter. The envoy's letter to the king informing him of this fact begins with the words, "Rome is a prostituted Babylon, and I feel as if I were in hell." In a letter to the King of France, De Sosa designates Lippomano, the papal nuncio who had been selected to fill the post of papal nuncio in Portugal, as a man "with the hands of an Esau and the voice of a Jacob."

J. S. O.