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Abstract: In 1669 the Gesuit Father Everardo Nithard was exhiled from the court of Madrid as a result of the sedition led by don Juan José of Austria, adverse to his influence. The confessor of regent Marianna of Austria moved to Rome where, until his deah in 1681, he lead a controversial embassy: an initially temporary diplomatic mission which he presided over ad interim due to the lack of support and constant critcism from the Spanish government, the outbreak of the Messina insurrection and a new Franco—Hispanic conflict; furthermore, relations between Cardinal Nidardo, the Curia and some of the most eminent Roman nobles, among which the Contestable Colonna, were very tormented. Thus Nithard’s years in Rome may be seen more as a golden exile than a diplomatic post in a strict sense and the period as a difficult one, in which the affairs of an embassy as crucial to the Spanish monarchy as the Roman one were negatively affected by having been entrusted to a figure increasingly neglected and criticized by the Spanish government.