Being at Valladolid in 1520, Torralba told Don Diego that he would return to Rome, because he had the means of getting there in a short time, by being mounted on a stick and guided through the air by a cloud of fire. Torralba really went to that city, where Cardinal Volterra and the grand prior requested him to give up his familiar spirit to them. Torralba proposed it to Zequiel, and even entreated him to consent, but without success.
In 1525 the angel told him that he would do well if he returned to Spain, because he would obtain the place of physician to the infanta Eleonora, queen dowager of Portugal, and afterwards married to Francis I., King of France. The doctor communicated this affair to the Duke de Bejar, and to Don Stephen-Manuel Merino, Archbishop of Bari; they solicited and obtained for him the place which he aspired to.
Lastly, on the 5th of May in the same year, Zequiel told the doctor that Rome would be taken by the imperial troops the next day. Torralba entreated his angel to take him to Rome to witness this important event; he complied, and they left Valladolid at the hour of eleven at night: when they were at a short distance from the city, the angel gave Torralba a knotted stick, and said to him, Shut your eyes, do not fear, take this in your hands, and no evil will befal you. When the moment to open his eyes arrived, he found himself so near the sea, that he might have touched it with his hand; the black cloud which surrounded them was succeeded by a brilliant light, which made Torralba fear that he should be consumed. Zequiel perceiving his fear, said, Reassure yourself, fool! Torralba again closed his eyes, and when Zequiel told him to open them, he found himself in the tower of Nona in Rome. They then heard the clock of the Castle St. Angelo sound the fifth hour of the night, which is midnight according to the manner of computing time in Spain, so that they had been travelling one hour. Torralba went all over Rome with Zequiel, and afterwards witnessed the pillage of the city: he entered the house of the Bishop Copis, a German, who lived in the tower of St. Ginia; he saw the Constable de Bourbon expire, the Pope shut himself up in the Castle of St. Angelo, and all the other events of that terrible day. In an hour and a half they had returned to Valladolid, where Zequiel quitted him, saying, Another time you will believe what I tell you. Torralba published all that he had seen; and as the court soon received the same news, Torralba (who was then physician to the Admiral of Castile) was spoken of as a great magician.
These rumours were the cause of his denunciation; he was arrested at Cuença by the Inquisition in the beginning of the year 1508. He was denounced by his intimate friend Diego de Zuñiga, who, after having been as foolishly captivated as Torralba, with the miracles of the good angel, became fanatical and superstitious. Torralba at first confessed all that has been related of Zequiel, supposing that he should not be tried for the doubts he had expressed of the immortality of the soul and the divinity of our Saviour. When the judges had collected sufficient evidence, they assembled to give their votes, but as they did not accord, they applied to the council, which decreed that Torralba should be tortured, as much as his age and rank permitted, to discover his motives in receiving and keeping near him the spirit Zequiel; and if he believed him to be a bad angel, as a witness declared that he had said so; if he had made a compact with him; what had passed at the first interview; if at that time or afterwards he had employed conjurations to invoke him; immediately after this the tribunal was to pronounce the definitive sentence.
Torralba had never varied, until that time, in his account of his familiar spirit, whom he always affirmed to be of the order of good angels, but the torture made him say, that he now perceived him to be a bad angel, since he was the cause of his misfortune. He was asked if Zequiel had told him that he would be arrested by the Inquisition; he replied that he had told him of it several times, desiring him not to go to Cuença, because he would meet with a misfortune there, but that he thought he might disregard this advice. He also declared that there was no compact between them, and that every circumstance had passed as he had related it.
The inquisitors considered all these details to be true; and after taking a new declaration from Torralba, they suspended his trial for the space of one year, from motives of compassion, and with the hope of seeing if this famous necromancer would be converted, and confess the compact and sorcery which he had constantly denied.
A new witness recalled the memory of his dispute, and his doubts of the immortality of the soul, and the divinity of Jesus Christ, which caused another declaration of the Doctor in January, 1530. The council being informed of it, commanded the Inquisition to commission some pious and learned persons to endeavour to convert the accused. Francisco Antonio Barragan, prior of the Dominican Convent at Cuença, and Diego Manrique, a canon of the cathedral, undertook this task, and exhorted him vehemently. The prisoner replied that he sincerely repented of his faults, but that it was impossible for him to confess what he had not done, and that he could not follow the advice given him, to renounce all communication with Zequiel because the spirit was more powerful than he was; but he promised that he would not desire his presence, or consent to any of his propositions.
On the 6th of March, 1531, Torralba was condemned to the usual abjuration of all heresies, and to suffer the punishment of imprisonment and the San-benito during the pleasure of the inquisitor-general; to hold no further communion with the spirit Zequiel, and never to attend to any of his propositions: these conditions were imposed on him for the safety of his conscience and the good of his soul.
The inquisitor soon put an end to the punishment of Torralba, in consideration, as he said, of all that he had suffered during an imprisonment of four years: but the true motive of the pardon granted to Torralba was the interest which the Admiral of Castile took in his fate; he retained him as his physician for several years after his judgment.
The truth of the marvellous facts related by Torralba rests solely upon his confession, and the report of the witnesses whom he had induced to believe all that he had told them. Torralba cited none but deceased persons in eight declarations which he made, except Don Diego de Zuñiga. It was necessary to remark this to show the degree of confidence to be placed in some parts of his narration. It may be supposed that a great number of different accounts of this affair were spread, to which I attribute the additions and alterations in some circumstances which Louis Zapata introduced into his poem of Carlos Famoso, thirty years after the sentence passed on Torralba, and of those details which Cervantes eighty years later thought proper to put in the mouth of Don Quixote.