Search results for "Spanish Inquisition"
showing 3 items of 3 documents
El Santo Oficio de la Inquisición en Barcelona y soldados protestantes en el ejército de Cataluña
2008
The case summaries sent to the central council of the Inquisition in Madrid by the tribunal in Barcelona show that a number of Protestant soldiers were in Spanish service in the second half of the seventeenth century. These soldiers were not persecuted by the Holy Office, but denounced themselves voluntarily in order to be allowed to convert to Catholicism. The majority of them were from German-speaking areas, and many came from within the Holy Roman Empire. The letters exchanged between Madrid and Barcelona show that this reflected a deliberate policy by the Inquisition of not trying soldiers in Spanish service, nor prisoners of war or deserters from the French army during this period.
From Spain to Sicily after the Expulsion: Conversos between Economic Networks and the Aristocratic Elite
2018
Abstract This article focuses on a group of conversos families from Spain, who established themselves in Palermo after the Expulsion of the Jews in 1492. There they supported financial activities of the Nazione Catalana and established strong relationships with the local aristocracy. Thanks to this alliance, they managed to avoid persecution by the Spanish Inquisition, “cleanse” their “impure” blood and reach high positions within politics and society: feudal titles, political and financial offices, habits of military orders, ecclesiastical appointments and sometimes even sainthood. Firstly, the paper will give a brief sketch of the phenomenon of conversos in Sicily as well as the activitie…
Soundless Screams: Graffiti and Drawings in the Prisons of the Holy Office in Palermo
2017
The discovery of graffiti in the early years of the twentieth century by the folklorist Giuseppe Pitré left by prisoners of the tribunal of the Spanish Inquisition in Palermo has been followed by more extensive investigations in recent years. These images and words have added a concrete and particular dimension to Sicily’s position at the crossroads of the Mediterranean. As well as images of saints and naval battles are to be found inscriptions not only in Italian, Sicilian and Latin but also in English and Hebrew. This article cross references this visual and textual evidence with the relevant archives of the tribunal in order to provide a powerful microhistory of suffering and resilience …