Fonseca y Acevedo, Alonso III de

Distinguished ecclesiastical leader who became primate of Spain. He was the son of the archbishop Alfonso II de Fonseca ‘Patriarca de Alejandría’ and doña María de Ulloa ‘Señora de Cambados’. He was born in Santiago de Compostela en 1476 and died in Toledo en 1534. He completed studies in Theology and Law. In matters relating to the vihuela, he was the employer of Alonso de Pisador, father of Diego Pisador. There is undocumented reason to suspect that Diego Pisador’s wife may have been an illegitimate daughter of the archbishop whom he succeeded to marry off to Alonso Pisador.

Alfonso became archbishop of Santiago, delegated by his father and approved by Fernando V of Castille. Charles V subsequently named him a member of the Consejo Real. As a member of the council he had significant roles of political importance. He enjoyed the confidence of the monarch and was chosen to baptise Philip II. In 1523, after the death of Cardinal Cisneros he was named Archbishop of Toledo.

In addition to his extensively generous social work in Toledo and Salamanca. He was a lover of the arts, a mecenas, and promotor of intellectual life, including as a follower of the humanist movement of Erasmus.

Alonso III de Fonseca had lovers including the noblewoman doña Juana Pimentel, who gave birth to a son, don Diego de Acevedo, for whom he founded a Mayorazgo in Galicia. This was the Duke of Monterrey who was served for several decades by Alonso Pisador as the administrator of his lands. His presence in Salamanca left numerous monuments, among them the Convento y Museo de las Úrsulas, the Palacio de Monterrey, the Convento de las Agustinas, the Colegio Mayor del Arzobispo Fonseca, El Palacio de la Salina and the rebuilding of the Iglesia de San Benito.

Diego Pisador

was his

family (unspecified)