Gabriel Malagrida

Who was Gabriel Malagrida?

Gabriel Malagrida was an Italian Jesuit missionary in the Portuguese colony of Brazil and influential figure in the political life of the Lisbon Royal Court who described the devastating 1755 Lisbon earthquake as retribution prompted by God's wrath.

Malagrida was famously caught up in the Távora affair and executed as a blasphemer and heretic after a Portuguese Inquisition case to which the Portuguese Prime Minister Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, Marquis of Pombal had his brother appointed as the head Inquisitor following the failure of the original attempt to have him executed on charges of conspiratorial high treason, which had earlier been rejected by another Inquisitor and for which he could not be executed by secular authorities due to his position as Jesuit priest.