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ples and practices of the “Holy Office,” as
the Inquisition was termed, and trans-
formed it into an efficient instrument of the
Spanish state. Following the completion of
the R ECONQUISTA in 1492 Torquemada
urged his sovereigns to complete the
renewal of Spain by the expulsion of alien
religious groups. The Jews were arbitrarily
banished in that same year, and the far
more numerous Muslim population was
placed under notice that it must convert to
Christianity within a relatively short time
or face expulsion. Aggressive attempts at
conversion of the Moors continued, with-
out great success during the remainder of
Torquemada's life, but the status of Mus-
lims or crypto-Muslims remained unre-
solved for decades. Jews, on the other hand,
were given little time to choose between
conversion or departure. Even those who
officially embraced Christianity remained
the target of inquisitorial investigation.
Some historians have argued that
Torquemada was simply a man of his time
for whom matters of law and religion were
to be taken seriously and punishment for
deviants were to be applied rigorously. Oth-
ers have denounced him as a monster of
fanaticism, obsessed with “cleansing” Spain
of all who did not conform to his ideal of
perfection. Although he was not the origi-
nator of the concept of an inquisition, either
in Italy or Spain, he was in effect its founder
and its principal ideologue. His brief tenure
as grand inquisitor created an image of tor-
ture, public executions, secret agents, and
mind control that would endure for centu-
ries and become inseparable from the sinis-
ter connotations of the term S PANISH
I NQUISITION . Some commentators have
found the supreme irony of Torquemada's
particular pursuit of Spain's long-estab-
lished Jewish community to lie in the fact
that he came of a converso family (that is,
one that had converted from Judaism gen-
erations earlier). His uncle, the cardinal,
was able to accept his ancestry and to take
a sympathetic interest in his Jewish coun-
tryfolk. Torquemada, however, may have
been, in the opinion of some analysts,
driven by guilt and shame over his origins
to an obsessive persecution of those whose
bloodline he shared.
Torres Naharro, Bartolomé de
(1476-1530)
Spanish playwright
Like many Spaniards of the Renaissance
era, Torres Naharro pursued several careers
successively. He was a soldier and spent
time as a captive of the Moors. He then
became a priest and made his way to Rome,
where he met J UAN DEL E NCINA , another
Spanish clergyman who had already
embarked on a literary path. Both men
were influenced by Italian innovations in
poetry and poetical drama. Torres Naharro
was clearly influenced by his countryman
but pursued what is generally regarded as a
more sophisticated and sometimes contro-
versial line of dramatic writing. Literary
historians have bestowed the title “father of
Spanish drama” upon both Encina and Tor-
res Naharro; however, despite the fact that
the two men were near contemporaries, it
might be more logical, according to some,
to call Encina the “grandfather” because he
preceded and influenced his friend.
Torres Naharro's earliest work consists
largely of frank imitations of églogas
(eclogues) of Encina, which were them-
selves derived from Virgilian models. How-
ever, when Torres Naharro assembled some
 
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