Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 14.djvu/861

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TORQUEMADA


783


TORRES


the Holy Name Society are strongly established. The priests have a Eucharist ic League and also a society which cares for infirm members of the clergy.

Teffy (ed.). Jubilee Volume of the Archdiocese of Toronto (Toronto, 1892); Harris, The Catholic Church in the Niagara Peninsuia (Toronto, 1S95); Robertson, Landmarks of Toronto. 4th ser. (Toronto, 1904); McKeown, Life of Archbishop Lynch (Montreal. 1886) ; The Archives of St. Michael's Cathedral; Acta el decreta primi concilii protincialis Torontini (Toronto, 1882).

Edw. Kelly.

Torquemada, TomAs db, first Grand Inquisitor of Spain, b. at Valladolid in 1420; d. at Avila, 16 Sept., 149S. He was a nephew of the celebrated theologian and cardinal, Juan de Torquemada. In his early youth he entered the Dominican monastery at ValladoUd, and later was appointed prior of the Monastery of Santa Cruz at Segovia, an office which he held for twenty-two years. The Infanta Isabella chose him as her confessor while at Segovia, and when she succeeded to the thi'one of Castile in 1474 he became one of her mast trusted and influential coun- cillors, but refused all high ecclesiastical preferments, choosing to remain a simple friar. At that time the purity of the Catholic Faith in Spain was in great danger from the numerous Marranos and Moriscos, who, for material considerations, became sham con- verts from Judaism and Mohammedanism to Chris- tianity. The Marranos committed serious outrages against Christianity and endeavoured to judaize the whole of Sp.ain. The Inquisition, which the Catholic sovereigns had been empowered to estabhsh by Sixtus IV in 147S, had, despite unjustifiable cruelties, failed of its purpose, chiefly for want of centralization. In 1483 the pope appointed Torquemada, who had been an assistant inquisitor since 11 February, 1482, Grand Inquisitor of Castile, and on 17 October extended his jurisdiction over Aragon.

As papal representative and the highest official of the inquisitorial court, Torquemada directed the entire business of the Inquisition in Spain, was em- powered to delegate his inquisitorial faculties to other inquisitors of his own choosing, who remained ac- countable to him, and settled the appeals made to the Holy See. He immediately established tribunals at Valladolid, Seville, Jaen, Avila, Cordova, and Villa-real, and, in 14.S4, at Saragossa for the Kingdom of Aragon. He also instituted a High Council, con- sisting of five members, whose chief duty was to a.ssist him in the hearing of appeals (sec Inquisition. — The Inquisiiion in Spain). He convened a general assembly of Spanish inquisitors at Seville, 29 Novem- ber, 1484, and presented an outUne of twenty-eight articles for their guidance. To these he added several new statutes in 1485, 1488, and 1498 (Reu.ss, "Samm- lungen der Instructionen des spanischen Inquisitions- gerichts", Hanover, 1788). The Marranos found a powerful means of evading the tribunals in the Jews of Spain, whose riches had made them very influential and over whom the Inquisition had no jurisdiction. On this account Torquemada urged the sovereigns to compel all the Jews either to become Christians or to leave Spain. To frustrate his designs the Jews agreed to pay the Spanish government 3(),(XX) ducats if left unmolested. There is a tradition that when Ferdinand was about to yield to the enticing off'er, Torquemada appeared before him, bearing a crucifix aloft, and exclaiming: "Judas Iscariot sold Christ for 30 pieces of silver; Your Highness is about to sell him for .30,000 ducats. Here He is; take Him and sell Him." Leaving the crucifix on the table he left the room. Chiefly through his instrumentality the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492.

Much has been WTitten of the inhuman cruelty of Torquemada. Llorcnte computes that during Tor- nuema<la's office (1 183-98) SS(K) suffered death by fire and 96,.504 were punished in other ways (Histoire de rinquisition, IV, 2.52). The,se figures are highly exaggerated, as had been conclusively proved by


Hefele (Cardinal Ximenes, ch. xviii). Gams (Kirchen- geschichte von Spanien, III, II, 68-76), and many others. Even the Jewish historian Graetz contents himself with stating that "under the first Inquisitor Torquemada, in the course of fourteen years (1485- 1498) at least 2000 Jews were burnt as impenitent sinners" ("History of the Jews", Philadelphia, 1897, IV, 356). Most historians hold with the Protestant Peschel (Das Zeitalter der Entdeckungen, Stutt- gart, 1877, pp. 119 sq.) that the number of persons burnt from 1481 to 1504, when Isabella died, was about 2000. Whether Torquemada's ways of fer- reting out and punishinc heretics were justifiable is a matter that has to be dec ided not only by comparison with the peniil standard of the fifteenthcentury, but also, and chiefly, by an inquiry into their necessity for the preservation of Christian Spain. The contem- porary Spanish chronicler, Sebastian de Olmedo (Chronicon magistroruni generalium Ordinis Pra?dica- torum, fol. 80-81), calls Torquemada "the hammer of heretics, the light of Spain, the saviour of his country, the honour of his order".

MoLtNEs. Torquemada el I' Inquisition (Paris, 1877); Barth- £lemy. Ermirs hisluriques (Paris. 187.5), 170-204; FiTA. La In- Quisicidnde Torqunmidn in Bohhn .1,/ //, ' , XXIII (Madrid, 1893), 369-434; TofRON, //i,,/m.. I lustres de Vordre

de Saint Dominique. Ill (Pari-, i7l< i .,s; Tarrida del

Marmol, Les Inquisileurs d'Exj,,, r,. I'.r: . 1S97); RoDRiao, Historia verdadera de la Inquisicion, II. Ill (Madrid, 1877); Lea. History of the Inquisition in Spain (London and New York, 1906-08).

Michael Ott.

Torres (Turrianus), Francisco, Hellenist and polemicist, b. in Herrera, Palencia, about 1.509; d. at Rome, 21 November, 1584. He was the nephew of Dr. Torres, Bishop of the Canaries. He studied at Salamanca and lived in Rome with Cardinals Salviati and Seripando. In 1562 Pius IV sent him to the Council of Trent, and on 8 January, 1567, he became a Jesuit. He was professor at the Roman College, took part in the revision of the Sixtine Vulgate, and had Hosius and Baronius for literary as.sociates. His contemporaries called him hdlun lihrorum for the rapidity with which he examined the principal libra- ries. He defended the doctrines of the Immaculate Conception, the authority of the sovereign pontiff over the council, the Divinely appointed authority of bishops, Communion under one kind for the laity, the authenticity of the Apostolic Canons and the Pseudo- Isidorian decretals, and pleading the antiquity of the feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin, which Pius V had suppressed, worked for its rein- statement. Blondel accuses him of want of critical judgment, and Nadal of mordacity against Protes- tants. He wrote more than seventy books, princi- pally polemical, against Protestants, and translations especially of Greek Fathers, many treatises of whose works he found hidden away in libraries.

SoTCELLUS, Bibliotheca Scriplorum S. J. (Rome, 1676), 260; NiEREMBERG, Varoncs iluslres. V (Bilbao, 1890). 57; Nicolas Antonio, Bibliotheca Hispano Nova, I (Madrid, 1783), 487; HcB- TER, Nomcnclator. I (Innsbruck, 1892), 105; Sommervoqel, Bibliothique, VIII (Brussels, 1898), 113 sqq.

PfiREZ GOYENA.

Torres Naharro, Bartolem6 de, Spanish poet and dramatist, b. at Torres, near Badajoz, towards the end of the fifteenth century. The date of his death is not known, and little is known of his life. He was a cleric and a m;in of .some learning. About the year 1514 he was living in Rome, where he enjoyed the patronage of Fabricio Colonna, whom he served in the capacity of chaplain. Following the publication of a satire from his pen in which he attacked the vices of the Court , he was banished from Rome and took refuge in Naples, where we lose sight of him. In the latter city was publi.shed, in 1517, a collection of his lyric and dramatic works under the title of "propaladia". These consist of satires, epistles, romances, ballads, and some miscellaneous poetry, but chiefly of eight