Torquemada

Torquemada, fictional character, a miserly pawnbroker and usurer in a series of novels by Benito Pérez Galdós. The series includes Torquemada en la hoguera (1889; “Torquemada at the Stake”), Torquemada en la cruz (1893; “Torquemada on the Cross”), Torquemada en el purgatorio (1894; “Torquemada in Purgatory”), and Torquemada y San Pedro (1895; “Torquemada and Saint Peter”). These satirical novels, based on the tradition of cuadros de costumbres (“literary sketches on manners and society”), were part...