After the capture and sack of Rome in 1527, Valdés wrote the dialogue "Lactantius" in which he violently attacked the pope as a disturber of the public peace, an instigator of war, and a perfidious deceiver, declared the fate of Rome the judgment of God, and called the Papal States the worst governed dominion in the world. The dialogue was printed in 1529 and was widely read. The papal nuncio at Madrid, Baldassare Castiglione, brought an accusation before the Inquisition, but the trial amounted to nothing because Charles V took his servant under his protection, while the grand inquisitor also declared that it was not heretical to speak against the morals of the pope and the priests. Consequently, it was decided that the dialogue was not calumnious.