Simón Montero

• General Notes
  • pp155-160. Circumcized.  From Casteloblanco via Seville.  Parents:  Francisco Antunez and Antonia Nunez.  Married Dona Elena Montero, his niece, daughter of Isabel Rodriguez, his sister.  Isabel Rodriguez married to Diego Enriquez from Montilla.  They were the parents of Manuel Ramirez de Manual Ramirez de Montilla, in this auto, and Jorge Ramirez de Montilla, in the auto of 1648.  HE is the brother of Duarte de Leon Xaramillo and Jorge Antunez de Leon (wife Beatriz Enriquez) of Seville.  Came to New Spain in 1633, arrested by Holy OFfice in 1634, and then released.  Went back to Spain, returned to New Spain to bring Leon Xaramillo back.  "It appeared that our Lord Jesus Christ played a joke on him because he accompanied his brother in his flames."  p. 156.  Arrested again just over a month after he returned.  He went to Rome to get dispensation for marrying his niece.  HE also went to "the synagogues of France, Leghorn, and Pisa in order to study the rites, precepts and ceremonies of Judaism so that he might later fulfill the office of rabbi in these parts of the Indies."  "When he came to Rome he passed himself off as a Roman Catholic.  He requested the dispensation at the same time that he was a fine Jew [among the Jews] because he ran to the synagogue and had himself circumcized."  See the very important story of Clara Nunez, who preferred Catholicism, pp. 157, and how her parents locked her up.