The congregation at Seville were sentenced at _autos_ held in 1559 and 1560. On December 22d of the latter year, there were fourteen burned in the flesh and three in effigy. The last were notable people. One was Doctor Egidio, who had been a leading canon of Seville Cathedral, and who had been tried and forced to recant his heresies in 1552. After release he renewed his connection with the Lutherans, but soon died and was buried at Seville. His corpse was exhumed, brought to trial, and burnt with his effigy; all his property was confiscated and his memory declared infamous. Another was Doctor Ponce de la Fuente, a man of deep learning and extraordinary eloquence who had been chaplain and preacher to the emperor. He followed the Imperial Court into Germany, then returned to charm vast congregations in Seville, but his sermons were reported by spies to be tainted with the Reformed doctrines. He was seized by the Inquisition and many incriminating papers were also taken. When cast into a secret dungeon and confronted with these proofs of his heresy, he would make no confession, nor would he betray any of his friends. He was transferred to a subterranean cell, damp and pestiferous, so narrow he could barely move himself, and was deprived of the commonest necessaries of life. Existence became impossible under such conditions, and he died, proclaiming with his last breath that neither Scythians nor cannibals could be more cruel and inhuman than the barbarians of the Holy Office. The third effigy consumed was that of Doctor Juan Pérez de Pineda, then a fugitive in Geneva. Chief among the living victims was Julian Hernandez, commonly called _el Chico_, "the little," from his diminutive stature. Yet his heart was of the largest and his courage extraordinary. He was a deacon in the Reformed Church and dared to penetrate the interior of Spain, disguised as a muleteer, carrying merchandise in which Lutheran literature was concealed. Being exceedingly shrewd and daring he travelled far and wide, beyond Castile into Andalusia, distributing his books among persons of rank and education in all the chief cities. His learning, skill in argument, and piety, were not less remarkable than the diligence and activity by which he baffled all efforts to lay hold of him. At last he was caught and imprisoned. Relays of priests were told off to controvert his opinions, and he was repeatedly tortured to extract the names of those who had aided him in his long and dangerous pilgrimage through the Peninsula, but he was staunch and silent to the last.