Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition.

Brown cloth binding with gilt title on the spine and gilt cross on the front board.

A rare collector's book where both the content and the book proper combine to produce a most valuable tomb.

Torquemada, the dour Dominican Friar, was responsible for one of the cruellest examples of religious persecution the world has ever known. Driven by his own warped genius, and against the express wishes of his king and queen, he single-handedly engineered torture and fear to a staggering degree. For Torquemada was the original President of the Spanish Inquisition.

Review: A very interesting book, which focuses less on Torquemada than on the political and social climate which led to and later sustained the Spanish Inquisition. Readers should prepare to have some of their popular misconceptions about the Inquisition, its methods and 'madness' obliterated. Sabatini's own opinions on the Inquisition, key political and religious figures of the time, and subsequent commentators and historians are readily conveyed, and considering this it is surprising that he hasn't gone on to paint a more damning picture of the Inquisition. The history is illustrated with trials and examples of Torquemada and the Holy Office at work, is well-written (although the style is somewhat archaic and troublesome at times), and often surprising in its revelations. Torquemada himself still remains a touch shaded at the conclusion, however, so if you're looking for a history of the man this is probably more of a decent starting point than a comprehensive biography.

Tomás de Torquemada OP (14 October 1420 – 16 September 1498), also anglicized as Thomas of Torquemada, was a Castilian Dominican friar and first Grand Inquisitor of the Tribunal of the Holy Office (otherwise known as the Spanish Inquisition). The Spanish Inquisition was a group of ecclesiastical prelates that was created in 1478, and which was charged with the somewhat ill-defined task of "upholding Catholic religious orthodoxy" within the lands of the newly formed union of the crowns of Castile and Aragon. The lands of this newly formed royal union are now known as the Kingdom of Spain.

Mainly because of persecution, Muslims and Jews in Castile and Aragon at that time found it socially, politically, and economically expedient to convert to Catholicism. The existence of superficial converts from Judaism was perceived by the Catholic Monarchs as a threat to the religious and social life in their realms. This led Torquemada, who himself had converso ancestors, to be one of the chief supporters of the Alhambra Decree that expelled the Jews from the Crowns of Castile and Aragon in 1492.

Owing to the perception of widespread use of torture to extract confessions, and advocacy of burning at the stake those deemed guilty, Torquemada's name has become synonymous with cruelty, religious intolerance, and fanaticism. Although torture was included in inquisition manuals from 1252 onward, it is largely absent from trial records, suggesting that while torture was allowed, it was rarely used.

The number of burnings at the stake during Torquemada's tenure has been estimated at about 2,000.

The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition, was established in 1478 by the Catholic Monarchs, King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile. It began toward the end of the Reconquista and was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms and to replace the Medieval Inquisition, which was under Papal control. It became the most substantive of the three different manifestations of the wider Catholic Inquisition along with the Roman Inquisition and Portuguese Inquisition. The "Spanish Inquisition" may be defined broadly as operating in Spain and in all Spanish colonies and territories, which included the Canary Islands, the Kingdom of Naples, and all Spanish possessions in North, Central, and South America. According to modern estimates, around 150,000 people were prosecuted for various offences during the three-century duration of the Spanish Inquisition, of whom between 3,000 and 5,000 were executed (~2.7% of all cases).

The Inquisition was originally intended primarily to identify heretics among those who converted from Judaism and Islam to Catholicism. The regulation of the faith of newly converted Catholics was intensified after the royal decrees issued in 1492 and 1502 ordering Jews and Muslims to convert to Catholicism or leave Castile, resulting in hundreds of thousands of forced conversions, the persecution of conversos and moriscos, and the mass expulsions of Jews and of Muslims from Spain. The Inquisition was abolished in 1834, during the reign of Isabella II, after a period of declining influence in the preceding century.