Gaspar de Quiroga y Vela
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Gaspar de Quiroga y Vela (Madrigal de las Altas Torres,Avila, 13 January 1512 - 20 November 1595) was a prominent Catholic official who rose to become General Inquisitor of Spain, from 1573 to 1595, and Archbishop of Toledo from 1577 to 1595. He was named a Cardinal by Pope Gregory X in 1578.
[edit] Life
He was educated as a Doctor in Theology and Law at the University of Salamanca. From May 21, 1527 to September 13, 1598, he was sent by King Felipe II as an envoy to Rome and to the Spanish-sdministered territories in the Italian peninsula. He served as a member of the Spanish High Council of Justice since 1563 and as Bishop of Cuenca, (1561 - 1577).
He was a patron in Toledo of the Greek-Spanish painter Doménikos Theotokópoulos, usually known as El Greco. It is claimed that Quiroga portrait is found in the face of Saint Augustine in the famous Greco painting The Burial of the Count of Orgaz.
Quiroga liberated from the Inquisition's prisons the mystical poet Frey Luis Ponce de León. He had been imprisoned at Valladolid from March 1572 until December 1576 for publishing, amongst other things, a Spanish translation of the Song of Solomon, both of his parents having Jewish ancestry albeit being himself an Augustinian monk expert in Greek, Latin and Hebrew.
In 1583 an apparently important group of Crypto-Jews were discovered in Quintanar de la Orden in Castile - La Mancha, Spain. This village was associated to the Military Order of Santiago since 1174. This village is located about 9 kilometers from the the village of El Toboso, where Miguel de Cervantes had assigned as the town in which Don Quixote's found his romantic interest, Dulcinea, but also where he battled windmills. Some claim that Cervantes has made the windmills a metaphor for the inquisitors of Quintanar de la Orden.
Around 1584, Quiroga built at the other side of the River Tagus, in the area known as the "Cigarrales", a summer house now occupied by a hotel.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- http://caminodelaordendesantiago.net/Secciones/02_Camino.html
- PIZARRO LLORENTE, Henar. "Un gran patrón en la corte de Felipe II : Don Gaspar de Quiroga".Pizarro Llorente, Henar. Publ. Madrid : Universidad Pontificia de Comillas, (2004), 620 pages ; 24 cm., Bibliography and Index, ISBN 84-8468-147-5
- http://descargas.cervantesvirtual.com/servlet/SirveObras/13548842012917162922202/025160.pdf?incr=1
- http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/FichaObra.html?Ref=25160
- http://books.google.es/books?id=Q-0safYlIuoC&pg=PA56&lpg=PA56&dq=Gaspar+de+Quiroga&source=web&ots=Rtr2vRTXSK&sig=DMaRTJ-zgeH8lMyodYC6Mf9uMvM&hl=es&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result
- http://www.madrigal-aatt.net/personajes/cardenal_gaspar_de_quiroga_y_vel.htm
