Francisco Delicado's El Retrato de la Lozana Andaluza is a satire that ridicules and denounces
blood purity and the codes of conduct of the elite in early modern Spain and Italy. The novel
published in Venice in 1528 was written in the form of a dialogue. Its author the Spanish
clergyman and publisher Francisco Delicado escaped from Rome a year earlier due to the
anti-Spanish ideas. Published anonymously the novel depicts the life of the underworld of Rome
during the first third of the sixteenth century especially among the community of Spanish Jews
who progressively moved to Rome after the establishment of the Holy Office in Spain in 1481.
