bunals, with one supreme appellate council directed by
himself. The Ordinances he issued (1484) regulated in-
quisitorial procedures in Spain for the next 300 years.
From 1483 onwards Torquemada used these vast policing
and judicial powers to try and punish spiritual offenders
on a grand scale: 2000 were executed during his tenure of
office, and vast numbers were punished with imprison-
ment and confiscation of property. Torquemada used an
alleged ritual murder of a Christian baby by Jews in La
Guardia as a pretext to expel non-converso Jews and Mus-
lims from Spain in 1492.
Torres Naharro, Bartolomé de (c. 1485–c. 1524)
Spanish playwright
He was born at La Torre de Miguel Sesmero, near Badajoz,
and was probably educated at Salamanca. For a time he
served as a soldier, was captured by pirates, sold into slav-
ery in Algiers, and later ransomed. He was then ordained
a priest and spent his life in Italy, at Rome and Naples,
where a number of prelates were his patrons. A collection
of comedies together with some poems and a theoretical
“Prohemio” on comedy was published in 1517 as Propal-
ladia. (Literally, “the first things of Pallas,” the title sug-
gests that a further volume of works was to follow, but
none was published.) The collection was widely read and
reprinted a number of times with additional comedies (ul-
timately six, after the addition of Calamita, 1520, and
Aquilina, 1524).
In the “Prohemio” Torres Naharro defines comedy as
an ingenious arrangement of incidents with a happy end-
ing. He follows the five-act structure and divides comedies
into two types: comedias a noticia, realistic plays about the
lower social orders; and comedias a fantasía, imaginative
plays. To the latter category of romantic comedy belong
Serafina, Himenea, Calamita, and Aquilina. Comedia Hime-
nea, his best play, owes something to LA CELESTINAand
was the earliest capa y espada (cape and sword) play on
the theme of honor; it introduced such conventional char-
acters as the lover (galán), the lady (dama), and the comic
servant (gracioso). His realistic comedias a noticia are Co-
media Soldadesca and Comedia Trinellaria. His works were
placed on the 1559 INDEX LIBRORUM PROHIBITORUM, but an
expurgated edition was allowed in 1573.
Torrigiano, Pietro d’Antonio (1472–1528) Italian
sculptor
A native of Florence, Torrigiano is notorious for breaking
the nose of MICHELANGELOwhen they were fellow stu-
dents, an exploit for which he was vilified by CELLINI,
VASARI, and other contemporaries. After wandering about
Italy for some time as a soldier, Torrigiano visited Antwerp
and in about 1511 reached England, where he executed
his finest works. The first representative of the Italian Re-
naissance in English art, he was commissioned to produce
the tombs of Henry VII and his wife Elizabeth of York
(1511–18) in Westminster Abbey, and also that of Henry’s
mother Lady Margaret BEAUFORT. Other works in England
included an altar (1517, destroyed in 1641), a medallion
of Sir Thomas Lovell, and the tomb of Dr John Yonge
(1516; Public Record Office). Moving to Seville during the
1520s, Torrigiano was imprisoned by the Spanish Inquisi-
tion and starved himself to death. Works executed in
Seville include two polychromed terracottas, St. Jerome
Kneeling in Penitence and a Virgin and Child.Toscanelli, Paolo dal Pozzo (1397–1482) Italian
mathematician and geographer
Toscanelli was educated at Padua and became an official
astrologer at Florence, where he moved in a circle of dis-
tinguished humanists. He exerted a notable influence on
his contemporaries, particularly with his theories about
perspective and the possibility of a sea route westward
across the Atlantic to China; despite their inaccuracy, his
calculations on the latter issue, which overturned those of
the geographers of antiquity, are known to have inspired
COLUMBUS.Tostado, El See MADRIGAL, ALFONSO DETotentanz See DANCE OF DEATHTournèbe, Adrien (Turnebus) (1512–1565) French
humanist scholar
He was born at Les Andelys, Normandy, and studied at
Paris before becoming professor of belles-lettres at
Toulouse. Returning to Paris in 1547 he became lecteur
royal at the Collège de France and in 1552 succeeded
Robert ESTIENNEas director of the royal press. In this role
he oversaw the production of major new texts of the
Greek playwrights Aeschylus and Sophocles (1552–53)
and of Homer’s Iliad (1557). He was also renowned for his
knowledge of ancient Greek philosophy, and his extensive
interests were demonstrated in his Adversaria (1564–65)
and in his complete works, published by his son Étienne
in 1600.tragedy In the Middle Ages tragedy, like COMEDY, was
understood in literary rather than dramatic terms. It con-
cerned the fall of a prince or other great personage from
prosperity to adversity and thus illustrated the mutability
of FORTUNE. The remedy, most eloquently stated in the De
consolatione philosophiae of Boethius (c. 480–524 CE), was
faith in divine providence. Attachment to wordly things
binds man to the wheel of Fortune; awareness of his true
end frees him from its inevitable fluctuations. In this thor-
oughly Christian context, tragedy in the classical mode
was not possible. No action was complete in this life but
extended beyond; the ultimate outcome was a matter for
comedy, in DANTE’s sense. Thus even Adam’s sin and the
fall of man involved the paradox of the felix culpa in thatttrraaggeeddyy 4 46677