Um Verdadeiro Reformador de Frades (A True Reformer of Friars)

This Portuguese engraving satirizes religious hypocrisy through a procession of friars and monks. Figures carry heavy burdens and alms boxes while children hold crosses; on the right, robed clergy receive donations from the poor. The Latin inscription reads "the robbed asking alms of the robber"—indicting the Church's accumulation of wealth from those it claims to serve. The print belongs to a European tradition of anticlerical satire popular among reformers and liberals, where religious figures are caricatured as corpulent, idle, or corrupt. Such imagery fueled 19th-century debates over Church property and influence, connecting popular prints to emerging comic traditions that used exaggeration and visual wit to challenge power.