Gabriel Malagrida

Gabriel Malagrida , born with Menaggio (Italy) the September 18th 1689 and died in Lisbon (Portugal) the September 21st 1761 garroté and burned on roughing-hew it, was a missionary Italian Jesuit .

Malagrida made its entry in the Society of Jesus with Genoa the September 27th 1711 and was sent as missionary to the Brésil in 1721.

It évangélisa Indian of the Brazil, especially in the areas of the Maranhão and the Pará. Propagator of the Christian faith and ignited preacher, it was regarded as the “apostle of the Brésil”, having passed by the Maranhão, the Pará, the bay of São Jose and the Pernambuco.

Malagrida came to Lisbon in 1750, where it assisted with the last moments of the king D. João V, and there will demueura until in 1751. This year, it turned over in the Maranhão, where it remained until in 1754, before returning definitively to the Portugal at the request of Marie-Anne of Austria. This was perhaps the greatest error of its life, as we will see it.

Very religious, it benefits from the earthquake of 1755 to exhort Lisboètes to reform their practices. Aggravated by the explanation of the natural causes of the catastrophe, which circulates in a booklet published at the request of the powerful Minister for the king D. José I, the marquis de Pombal, it writes a small text entitled Jugement on the true cause of the earthquake (1756) in which it speaks about divine punishment and claims to alleviate the misfortune of dislodged with processions and hymns.

The marquis de Pombal, however, hardly tastes the opinion of Malagrida and, considering with displeasure that, in this work, the author the critic, it decides to exile it in the town of Setúbal. At the time of this exile, many people come to visit Malagrida, and among them family members Távora, who is odious as much with the marquis de Pombal.

The attack supposed of the September 3rd 1758, and the Lawsuit of Távora which follows, provide to Pombal the occasion to continue Malagrida with more severity. He denounces it with the Inquisition like false prophet, impostor and, worse of all, to be a heretic, which is equivalent to dead on the Bûcher.

Septuagénaire, weakened by its last work and its stay in an unhealthy prison, it had become insane, continuing to defend with stubbornness its beliefs.

Delivered to the Inquisition of Lisbon and, after a procession, which is regarded by various historians as grotesque, he is shown of Hérésie and is condemned to death. He is garrotté at the time of the Autodafé September 21st 1761 and is burned on the Rossio, the principal place of Lisbon.

According to the philosopher French Ingenuous Voltaire in , “the excess of absurdity joined the excess of horror”.

In 2005, the Portuguese writer Pedro Almeida Vieira published the novel the Prophet of the divine Punishment , whose main character is the father Gabriel Malagrida, and who goes from the time of the earthquake to Lisbon of 1755 until his death at the time of an auto-da-fe in 1761.

To Brazil, documentary on the life of this Jesuit was recently turned by the realizer Renato Barbieri.

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