On the eve of the sixteenth century, Joao Nunes Correia was accused of displaying a crucifix in a room ordinarily reserved for personal ablution. Pero da Silva, a 44 year-old labourer on his way to work on the prestigious Rua Nova, was alarmed when he noticed the figure of Christ covered with grimy rags and spider webs on the bathroom wall. Confronting Joao, Pero was comforted by news that the merchant was in the process of building a new chapel, and so the figure had been placed there temporarily for the benefit of his servants. Satisfied, Pero returned to work, but rumours quickly spread that Joao, a man worth an astounding 200,000 cruzados and manager of two engenhos (sugar mills), was not a good Catholic. While Joao was used to such gossip, indeed the tax collector Francisco Ferraz reported he was known ‘throughout all of Pernambuco for frequent, public and scandalous notoriety’, the timing of Pero's discovery was inopportune.

On June 9 1591, the Holy Office of the Inquisition came to Brazil from Lisbon. Although a colony of Portugal since 22 April 1500 when Pedro Álvares Cabral first spotted land off the southern coast of Bahia, it took almost a century before King Philip II of Spain approved a delegation from the Lisbon Inquisition (1540–1821) to collect evidence in the Atlantic.