Pedro de Toledo y Zúñiga

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Pedro de Toledo
Portrait by Titian, 1542
Viceroy of Naples
In office 4 September 1532 – 21 February 1553
Monarch	Charles V
Preceded by	Pompeo Colonna
Succeeded by	Pedro Pacheco de Villena
Personal details
Born	13 July 1484 Madrid, Crown of Castile
Died	21 February 1553(1553-02-21) (aged 68) Florence, Republic of Florence
Spouse(s)	María Osorio y Pimentel, 2nd Marquise of Villafranca del Bierzo
Children	Eleanor of Toledo

Pedro Álvarez de Toledo y Zúñiga (13 July 1484 – 21 February 1553) was a Spanish politician. The first effective Spanish

Biography

Early life

He was born in 1484 near

Spain took over the Kingdom of Naples in 1503 and solidified her grasp after the final, failed attempt by France in 1529 to retake the kingdom. For the first three decades of the century, a succession of inconsequential viceroys ruled the vicerealm. Don Pedro arrived as viceroy in September 1532.

Don Pedro’s rebuilding of the city went on for years. Old city walls were expanded and an entirely new wall was built along the sea front. Fortresses along those walls and further up and down the coast from the city were modernized, and the Arsenale—the naval shipyards—were expanded considerably. Don Pedro also built the viceregal palace as well as a dozen blocks of barracks nearby, a square grid of streets lined with multi-storied buildings—unique in Europe for its time. Today, that section of Naples is still called the “Spanish Quarter”. The goal was to make not just the city of Naples, but the Gulf of Naples and eventually, the entire vice-realm invulnerable—that is, the entire southern Italian peninsula.

Don Pedro is remembered as the viceroy who tried without success to institute the Spanish Inquisition in Naples, in 1547. When the announcement of the Inquisition finally came in May 1547, the protest was immediate, turning violent very quickly. It was not a "popular" revolution, but rather a revolt by many of the landed nobility in and around Naples and Salerno, property owners who knew that the Inquisition had a reputation for confiscating the wealth and property of those whom it questioned. Additionally his Jewish chief financier Samuel Abravanel along with his wife Benvenida, may have had some influence on him, in regards to ending his aspirations of an Inquisition.^[2]

Don Pedro, upon the order of the emperor

Don Pedro's reputation as a city-builder has stood the test of time. The city of Naples still bears his stamp in countless places. He was supposed to be entombed in the church of

• Grand Duke of Tuscany
  . With issue.
• Fadrique Álvarez de Toledo y Osorio, 3rd Marquess of Villafranca del Bierzo; (1510 - 1569). 3rd Marquess on the death of his mother in 1539. He married Inés Pimentel, but no issue.
• Colonna
  , having issue, Pedro, who survived till 1627.
• Ana de Toledo, married Lopo de Moscoso Osório , 4th count of Altamira.
• Juana Álvarez de Toledo, married Fernando Ximenez de Urrea, 2nd Count of Aranda
• Isabel de Toledo, married Gian Battista Spinelli, 2nd Prince of Cariati
• Viceroy of Naples for 2 months in 1552, commander in the Order of Santiago
  .