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Gabriel Sanchez — Description

Gabriel Sanchez (called “Raphael Sanxis” in the oldest Latin manuscript of Columbus's first letter home, for seemingly no other reason than a scribal error) was a man to write home about. He was the other rich guy who put down a sack of doubloons on Columbus's batshit plan, and the treasurer of Aragon since 1475. Gabriel Sánchez is the guy whom the king gave first dibs on shipping all his profitable horses and grain overseas to an island paradise freshly conquered, and his relative Rodrigo Sánchez was personally recommended by Queen Isabella herself for Columbus's crew. It's an astonishing turnaround for a man who had the Inquisition breathing down his neck for most of his days.
Gabriel was the son of Pedro Sánchez, a Spanish Jew who'd converted to Christianity, though as we saw in previous essays, compliance does not protect you from suspicion or persecution. On May 4, 1484, Pedro de Arbués and Pedro Gaspar Juglar had been personally selected by Grand Inquisitor Tomás de Torquemada for the task of finding people in Zaragoza to burn. In just the first month of their term in office, two people had died screaming, and many more were already on their shit list. Juglar was found dead in January to the shock of absolutely no one, and then on September 17, 1485, Arbués was stabbed to death, through his chainmail mind you, by a hired Frenchman named Vidal d'Uranso while he was taking a knee in tainted prayer before the altar of the Catedral del Salvador de Zaragoza. The Sánchez family was one of many of Jewish descent who had the finger pointed at them, in particular Juan de Pedro, Alonso, and Guillén, all brothers of Gabriel. The implicated brothers fled to safety outside the country, because having a rich relative can get you out of any pickle. Their father though was not able to slip by so easily, burned as a heretic in 1493 for “relapsing” to his old faith. Gabriel however held a prestigious position in the court of the people who murdered his family, I can only presume because being irreplaceable was the only thing keeping him protected from getting spitroasted himself.
Whatever became of him, records of his existence drop out after the office of treasurer was passed to his son Luis on September 17, 1505. I can only hope he didn't go up in smoke.
Design notes, well that was brief and grim. Not a lot of info out there about this guy, and fewer artistic depictions still. I ultimately decided to take the quick and lazy route, drawing inspiration from the guy standing next to King Ferdinand in Emanuel Leutze's 1843 painting Columbus Before the Queen. The guy standing behind that guy meanwhile had better facial hair, so I just kinda blorped them together. Not much else to say, and I'm running a little behind this morning :’) I might have procrastinated. See y'all in the PaleoLab!