He later moved to Rome, Italy, where he served Pope Pius II as a position similar to an ambassador of the Catholic Monarchs.
According to Martinez-Torrejon in the scientific journal Modern Language Notes, the work was dated from 1463 in Rome;[2] however, the book Conversos, Inquisition, and the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain claims that Lucena did not flee to Rome until long after 1463, and that the work was written in Portugal, to which he had moved after 1481.
Due to a misunderstanding of the text, thinking that it was "a defense of face-value Epicureanism", the Inquisition prosecuted Valla in 1444.
According to Modern Language Notes, Libro de vida beta is a "privileged text for the study of the cultural movement in which it was produced".
[2] Little information is available about Juan de Lucena's life and career, partially because of several other conversos of the fifteenth century having the same name.