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Francisco de Quevedo
400px-Don francisco de quevedo-villegas
Historical Figure
Nationality: Spain
Year of Birth: 14 September 1580
Year of Death: 8 September 1645 (aged 64)
Cause of Death: Natural Causes
Religion: Catholicism
Occupation: Poet, politician
Fictional Appearances:
1632 series
POD: May, 1631
Appearance(s): 1635: The Cannon Law
Type of Appearance: Direct
Date of Death: May 1635
Cause of Death: Stabbed in the neck

Francisco Gómez de Quevedo y Santibáñez Villegas (14 September 1580 – 8 September 1645) was a Spanish nobleman, politician and writer of the Baroque era. Along with his lifelong rival, Luis de Góngora, Quevedo was one of the most prominent Spanish poets of the age. His style is characterized by what was called conceptismo. This style existed in stark contrast to Góngora's culteranismo.

Francisco de Quevedo in 1632[]

In January of 1635, Francisco de Quevedo was engaged by Gaspar Borja y Velasco to undermine Pope Urban VIII, his family, and their allies and supporters. Essentially, he was assigned to create chaos in Rome, creating chaos being something he was known to be good at.

One thing he did was arrange for the printing and distribution of scurrilous and libelous handbills, some of which were less than coherent. Many of these purported to be from Rome's Committee of Correspondence, and even included rhetoric cribbed from early pamphlets from the Venetian CoC. However, people who knew Quevedo's handiwork were able to recognize it, and the fake CoC handbills did not ring true to people who knew Frank Stone or were familiar with Rome's real CoC. Quevedo also worked by hiring crowds to create disturbances. At times, he also arranged for militia units to be ready to suppress them in ways that would create many casualties, with the intent of creating resentment toward the militia and creating the appearance that Urban's control of the city was shaky.

It was implied that he had a hand in arranging the surrender of the port of Ostia to Spanish forces arriving from Naples. After that, he took personal charge of one of the advance parties assigned to capture cardinals and other senior churchmen loyal to Urban. That party was able to capture Urban's nephew Francesco Barberini outside of Rome. While bringing Barberini back to Rome, Quevedo falsely claimed Barberini was "attempting to escape" and summarily killed him. Quevedo had exceeded his instructions from Borja, and ordered that the Barberini and their loyalists be "killed in the fighting" or "killed while escaping".

Quevedo's final act was attempting to prevent Ruy Sanchez and Tom Simpson from bringing Urban out of the papal fortress Castel Sant'Angelo. Sanchez stabbed Quevedo in the neck, killing him instantly.

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