Ottfried Neubecker maintains that the hatching system in heraldry was invented by de la Colombière and not Petra Sancta who only popularized the system through his second treatise titled "Tesserae gentilitia", published in 1638. On the other hand, it's also true that Silvester Petra Sancta provided though preliminary, comprehensive studies on his heraldic work in Germany and the Netherlands and that it's very likely that he was acquainted with the idea of hatching and the earlier existing hatching methods from the Dutch engravers before he developed his own hatching system. He was the confessor of the Cardinal Pier Luigi Carafa (1581–1655). Between 1624 and 1634, Petra Sancta stayed with his lord in Cologne where he fought against the rising Protestantism through his sermons and religious discussions, including through two of his emblematic books published in 1634 and 1638, respectively. Later he settled down in Rome and published his famous treatise on heraldry there, but during the late 1620s and the early 1630s he stayed in the Spanish Low Countries and the neighbouring territories. In 1634 he published his first book touching the topic of heraldry, containing a hatching table, and his main heraldic work with a coherent hatching system was published in 1638 in Rome.