Sardinha was born in
Évora. He studied at the
University of Paris circa 1525. He was appointed chaplain of the St. Sebastian Church in
Madeira Island in 1529, then moving to
Lisbon and Porto. In 1545 he was named dean of the
Cathedral of Goa in India. After the death of the governor-general
João de Castro, Sardinha returned to Portugal, studying Canon Law in Coimbra. In 1551,
Pope Julius III established the
Diocese of São Salvador, under the
Papal bull Super specula militantis ecclesiae. Sardinha was elected to act as its first bishop. He arrived in the city of
Salvador in
Bahia on February 25, 1551, at the age of 55. Sardinha was ordained a bishop by Dom Fernando de Menezes Coutinho e Vasconcellos, taking office on June 22, 1552. He resigned on June 2, 1556. On July 16, 1556, he and his crew were shipwrecked and captured by the
Caeté people in the
Captaincy of Pernambuco, a Portuguese administrative district that covered the region north of Bahia. The shipwreck occurred in the present-day city of
Coruripe in the state of
Alagoas at the mouth of the
Coruripe River. Sardinha indicated by nods that he was a great prelate of the Portuguese and a priest consecrated to God. He was slaughtered with a
mace and devoured, along with his companions. Dom Pero Fernandes Sardinha was succeeded in the Prime See of Brazil by Dom
Pedro Leitão (1519–1573). ==In literature==