TOLEDO, ALVAREZ PEDRO di. - Spanish statesman, son of Federico, marquis of Villafranca, and of Isabella Pimentel, born in Alba de Torques in 1484.
He served Charles V and was appointed by him viceroy of Naples in 1532; he governed with a rigor aimed at breaking the power of the nobility, keeping it away from participation in government, and for this purpose also made use of the people. Desiring not to be loved but feared, he dissolved the academies on suspicion of religious and political novelty, and in May 1547 attempted to introduce into Naples the Spanish-style Tribunal of the Inquisition, provoking a popular uprising, soon repressed, and the opposition of Paul III, who since 1542 had organized the Roman Inquisition. In the Salt War (1541) he had defended the rebel Ascanio Colonna; and in 1545 he had sought to limit to four the number of bishops of the Kingdom who were to participate in the Council of Trent. In vain the nobility sought to obtain his recall from Charles V. He died in Salamanca in 1553. He had promoted the building progress of Naples and with stern justice repressed brigands and malefactors.
His brother was Juan, born on 9 June 1488; he became a Dominican friar at S. Stefano in Salamanca and later a master of theology in Paris. Appointed bishop of Corvoda on 21 August 1523, he transferred to Burgos on 11 April 1538; he was created cardinal by Paul III on 20 December 1538 and was given in commendam the archbishopric of Compostella on 27 June 1550. He adhered to the rigorous and reformist ideas of Cardinal Gian Pietro Carafa; as a supporter of the Inquisition, he was among its first members from its foundation in Rome in 1542. Always loyal to the imperial party in the Curia, he opposed the transfer of the Council from Trent to Bologna in 1547. He supported the foundation of the German College in Rome, desired by St Ignatius, and was protector of the Barnabites during their crisis of 1552 (v. APOLLO). Bishop of Tusculum on 29 May 1555, he died in the Curia on 15 September 1557.