49 - Attack on the Fortress of Faith, in Alonso de Espina, Fortalitium fidei

c. 1464. Illuminated parchment

The manuscript's introductory illustration sums up its contents: a great fortress—an allegory of the Christian faith—presided over by Christ the Man of Sorrows is defended by angels and clerics from four besieging armies. On the right, the Jews are depicted wearing red badges, weighed down by heavy chains and with their eyes covered by blindfolds that reveal their inability to interpret the Scriptures correctly. The oppressive, violent composition expresses the imaginary of the most orthodox Christians, who opposed any policy of religious tolerance.

Catedral de la Asunción de Nuestra Señora, Biblioteca y Archivo Capitular, El Burgo de Osma (Sòria)

50 - Pedro Berruguete (act. in Castile)

Altarpiece of Saint Dominic
c. 1491–99. Oil on panel

To enable him to paint the cycles of images for the altarpieces in the friary of Santo Tomás in Ávila, Tomás de Torquemada provided Pedro Berruguete with an illuminated manuscript telling of legends of Dominican saints. It was the basis for several ensembles to which various iconographic modifications were made on the instructions of the authoritarian friar in order to evoke the order’s inquisitional mission and its fight against false converts or crypto-Jews.

51 - Pedro Berruguete (act. in Castile)

Saint Dominic resurrects a Boy
c. 1491–99. Oil on panel

The miraculous healing of Napoleone Orsini, who died after falling from a horse, likens Saint Dominic to Jesus and his resurrection of Lazarus. The supernatural action is triggered by a gesture of power used since Antiquity: raising his right hand with his ring and little fingers bent.

Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

52 - Pedro Berruguete (act. in Castile)

Saint Dominic and the Albigensians
c. 1491–99. Oil on panel

In this ‘trial by fire’, a type of ordeal, we see how Saint Dominic’s book miraculously emerges unharmed and rises into the air, while the heretic manuscripts of the Albigensian scholars are consumed by flames. The episode dates back to the height of the spread of the Cathar or Albigensian heresy but actually alludes to the Inquisition’s fight against false converts, the new 15th-century heretics.

Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

53 - Pedro Berruguete (act. in Castile)

Saint Dominic of Guzmán
c. 1491–99. Oil on panel

Besides the traditional open book from which a branch of lilies—a symbol of purity—emerges, this likeness of Saint Dominic has two unusual features: the inscription ‘inquisitor’ on the halo and the action of spearing a vixen, a metaphor for heretics. Inspired by Torquemada, Berruguete used them to transform the saint into a champion of the Inquisition.

Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

54 - Pedro Berruguete (act. in Castile)

Apparition of the Virgin to a Community of Dominicans
c. 1491–99. Oil on panel

According to certain stories about the Dominican order, the Virgin saved various friars from being tormented by the devil. Mary’s protection is alluded to in this scene, where the Virgin, surrounded by angel musicians, appears to a community during the Hail Mary prayers while a yellow demon, winged but with an anthropomorphic appearance, threatens one of its members.

Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

55 - Pedro Berruguete (act. in Castile)

Tratado del Alborayque
s.l., s.n., s.a.
Woodblock print

Designed to defame conversos, this anonymous pamphlet was widely disseminated in Castile from the late 1400s. It begins with the image of a monstrous hybrid animal with the body of a donkey, the face of a horse, human eyes, the ears of a hound, the tail of a snake and a mixture of feet from various beings (man, horse, lion and eagle). From the perspective of Old Christians, bodily hybridity was a metaphor for the Judaising nature of conversos. It was an icon of their treachery and impure blood.

“BIBLIOTECA DE BARCARROTA” COLLECTION”
BIBLIOTECA DE EXTREMADURA, BADAJOZ 

56 - Pedro Berruguete (act. in Castile)

Altarpiece of Saint Peter Martyr
c. 1491–99. Oil on panel

The three altarpieces installed at the east end of the church of Santo Tomás in Ávila—the central one is still in place; the side ones are displayed here—are similar in composition. They consist of a central panel with the image of the titular saint of each ensemble flanked by four panels, two on each side, illustrating hagiographic episodes that stress the saint’s supernatural power and defence of Christian orthodoxy. Torquemada established links with the past, looking back at the history of his own order in order to legitimate its action at the helm of the Holy Tribunal.

Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

57 - Pedro Berruguete (act. in Castile)

Sanbenitos with inquisitorial inscriptions
c. 1550. Painting on canvas

These sanbenitos are rare surviving examples of the inscriptions that were hung permanently in churches on the orders of the Inquisition. They bear the names, convictions and punishments of people condemned in autos-da-fe. From Coruña del Conde (Burgos), they refer to conversos tried between 1490 and 1509 on charges of ‘Judaising apostate heretics’. The first, with the head of a wolf whose open mouth spews fire, a symbol of heresy, belongs to ‘Maestre Juan’, a surgeon burnt at the stake in 1490.

Parroquia de San Martín de Tours, Coruña del Conde (Burgos)

58 - Pedro Berruguete (act. in Castile)

Saint Peter Martyr praying
c. 1491–99. Oil on panel

Kneeling before a crucifix, the saint complains of the suffering caused by his defence of the faith, to which Jesus replies that he too sacrificed himself for the same reason. The scene is inspired by the methods of prayer advocated by Saint Dominic, but also alludes to the persecution of heretics and the inevitability of martyrdom.

Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

59 - Pedro Berruguete (act. in Castile)

The Miracle of the Cloud
c. 1491–99. Oil on panel

While preaching against heretics, Peter of Verona responds to the challenge of one of his bishops by miraculously causing a cloud to put an end to the stifling midsummer heat bearing down on his audience. The painting is a testament to the triumph of the true faith, in line with the trial by fire depicted in the altarpiece dedicated to Saint Dominic.

Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

60 - Pedro Berruguete (act. in Castile)

Saint Peter Martyr
c. 1491–99. Oil on panel

Killed by heretics in 1252, Peter of Verona became the prefiguration of other inquisitors who were murdered. Here he is depicted with his usual powerful and striking iconography: a knife driven into his head, the tip of a dagger sticking out of his chest, a palm with three crowns and an open book showing the first three letters of the Creed.

Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

61 - Pedro Berruguete (act. in Castile)

The Death of Saint Peter Martyr
c. 1491–99. Oil on panel

The saint and his companion, Fray Domenico, are murdered while travelling from Como to Milan. Before dying, Peter of Verona writes the first words of the Creed on the ground. Spectators of the period must have associated this martyrdom scene with recent events such as the death of the inquisitor Pedro de Arbués, who was killed by conversos and Jews in Zaragoza in 1485.

Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

62 - Pedro Berruguete (act. in Castile)

The Adoration of the Tomb of Saint Peter Martyr
c. 1491–99. Oil on panel

Sick people, including a blind man, are healed by the virtus emanating from the saint’s tomb. Even the lamp is miraculously lit by a ray shining through the window. These are two expressions of the thaumaturgical power of Saint Peter Martyr’s relics and, accordingly, his celestial nature.

Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

63 - Monogrammist HA

Crucifixion of the Holy Child of La Guardia, in Rodrigo de Yepes
Historia de la muerte y gloryoso martyrio del Sancto Innocente
Madrid, 1583, fol. 1
Engraving

Although the case had a huge social impact and was one of the events that gave decisive impetus to the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, there are no known images of the story of the Child of La Guardia dating from before the mid-1500s. This engraving shows a curious depiction of the boy: the wings on his back and extremities liken him to Cupid, while the large cross supporting him derives from the iconography of the risen Christ Child

Biblioteca Nacional de España, Madrid

64 - Anonymous Castilian

Martyrdom of the Holy Child of La Guardia
1590s or after. Oil on panel

This small, simple panel of uncertain origin illustrates another way of representing infanticidal Jews and conversos. Similar in composition to the print in Yepes' book, and possibly from a later date, it shows the Child of La Guardia crucified and surrounded by seven executioners. Despite the condition of the panel, it is still possible to read fragments of the inscriptions that originally identified the figures, providing the names and surnames of the people convicted of the boy's alleged murder.

Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid

65 - Pedro Berruguete (act. in Castile)

Saint Dominic presiding over an Auto-da-fe
c. 1491–99. Oil on panel

Five conversos are being tried by an Inquisition tribunal: two are burned alive and the other three wear yellow sanbenitos and conical caps decorated with flames and display inscriptions (‘condemned heretic’). The gruesome scene, from the friary of Santo Tomás in Ávila, was commissioned as an admonitory remembrance of the autos-da-fe held to purge Christians of Judaism. Executed around the time of the expulsion of the Jews in 1492, this painting is a sad reminder of the active role images played in the religious and social polemic of late medieval Spain.

Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

66 - Pedro Berruguete (act. in Castile)

Christ on the Cross
c. 1493–98. Oil on panel

This painting commissioned for the friary of Santa Cruz in Segovia, where it dominated the former altarpiece in the antechapel of the Holy Cave, further attests to Tomás de Torquemada’s use of images. The Crucifixion of Christ was not only an essential element of the friars’ meditative practices but was also at the centre of the religious debate as the fuse that triggered the division between Jews and Christians. This explains its prominent role in anti-Jewish discourses.

MUSEO DE SEGOVIA (DEPÓSITO DE LA DIPUTACIÓN PROVINCIAL DE SEGOVIA)

97 - Gil Morlanes "el Viejo" (act. in Aragon)

Sepulchre of Pedro de Arbués
c. 1487–90. Alabaster

Pedro de Arbués, the inquisitor of Aragon, was considered a martyr of the Inquisition following his murder by Jews and conversos in 1485. In an intentional act of devotion, the Catholic Monarchs commissioned a grand reliquary-funerary monument, erected at the transept of Zaragoza cathedral, from which this statue comes. Autos-da-fe were held around it for decades and the condemned people's sanbenitos and inscriptions were hung there. This overpowering setting was designed to glorify and commemorate the martyr, but also to proclaim the ignominy of conversos.

Funerary monument of Pedro de Arbués, 17th century. Pencil, pen and ink, and wash on paper. Zaragoza, Archivo del Cabildo Metropolitano

68 - Pedro Millán (act. in Seville)

Christ tied to the Column
c. 1487. Polychrome wood

One of the visions the Blessed María de Ajofrín described to her confessor in 1488 was an apparition of Christ tied to the column. After showing her his bloody back, he told her that he would continue to be tortured as long as there were heretics (that is, Judaising Christians) and asked her to pass on this message to the inquisitors. In an environment fraught with suspicion and anxiety, any devotional image could become an anti-converso icon simply because it recalled Christ’s suffering.

MUSEO DE SEGOVIA (DEPÓSITO DE LA DIPUTACIÓN PROVINCIAL DE SEGOVIA)