Tomas de Torquemada (1420-16 September 1498) was the first Inquisitor General of Spain, from 1489 to 1498.
Biography[]
Torquemada was a Dominican friar from Valladolid, appointed by Isabella I of Castile to the post of Inquisitor General, overseeing the conversion, confession, reversion, or execution of Muslims and Jews in the Iberian Peninsula. From 1489 to 1498, the Spanish Inquisition terrorized all non-Catholics in Spain, and was mirrored in Portugal.
In 1491 he was contacted by Rodrigo Borgia to kill a list of believed Heretics: they were actually members of the Spanish Assassins. Helped by Calficador Pedro Llorente and Juan de Marillo, he killed many of the Assassins without knowing their true allegiances, and these killings stopped only with the executions of Llorente and Marillo. Not long after Marillo's death, Ezio Auditore da Firenze infiltrated Torquemada's castle and found out that he had little knowledge of the Knights Templar. Torquemada escaped the castle by closing the gates, and Ezio did not pursue. He would later be tracked down and assassinated in 1498.