TORQUEMADA (TURRECREMATA), JUAN de. — Dominican theologian, cardinal, b. at Valladolid in 1388, d. in Rome on 26 September 1468.
He entered religious life ca. 1403 and accompanied Ludovico di Valladolid to the Council of Constance (1417); he studied and received his degree in Paris (1424). Prior at Valladolid and Toledo, in 1435 he was appointed Master of the Sacred Palace. The theologian of Eugene IV at the Council of Basel (1432), he defended the supremacy of the Pope over the Council. He worked extensively for the conversion of the Bohemians.
At the Council of Florence (1439–43) he played an important role in the discussions with the Greeks. On 18 December 1439 he was created cardinal of the title of S. Sisto, then bishop of Palestrina (1455) and finally of Sabina (1463); at the same time he held the bishoprics of Cádiz (1440–44), then of Orense (1442–60) and León (1460–64). He accompanied Pius II to the Congress of Mantua (1459). At the Pontiff’s request, he undertook the instruction of three representatives of the Manichaean heresy, sent to Rome by the King of Bohemia, and converted them to the faith (1461). Near the church of the Minerva in Rome he founded the pious Association of the Annunciation to provide dowries for poor girls, and was buried there.
For his attachment to the Apostolic See and his vigorous defense of papal authority, he merited from Eugene IV the coveted title of defensor fidei. He left works on a variety of subjects: Tractatus contra errores Mahumetis (Paris 1455, Rome 1606); Expositio brevis et utilis super toto Psalterio (Rome 1470, Mainz 1474); Tractatus de corpore Christi adversus Boemos (Lyons 1478); Summa de Ecclesia (Cologne 1480), the most important, which was extensively used by defenders of papal authority against every form of conciliarism. Flores sententiarum divi Thomae Aquinatis de auctoritate Summi Pontificis (Augsburg 1496); Commentarii in Decretum Gratiani (6 vols., Lyons 1516); Tractatus de veritate conceptionis b. Mariae Virginis (presented to the Council of Basel; Rome 1517); Apparatus super Decretum Florentinum unionis Graecorum (Venice 1561; critical ed. by E. Candal, Rome 1942); Contra decreta Concilii Constantineis in favor of Eugene IV (Venice 1563 and in Mansi, XXX, cols. 550–90); Orationes seu dissertationes duae in Concilio Florentino latae (against the Greeks, on unleavened bread and on the form of Transubstantiation; ed. Mansi, XXXI, cols. 1671 ff., 1863 ff.). Various other works on the Mass, holy water, the revelations of s. Brigida, the Rule of s. Benedetto, and Sacred Scripture, besides more than twenty unpublished works.
(Alinari photograph)
TORQUEMADA, JUAN de — The Virgin Annunciate offers the purse containing the dowry to three poor girls, presented by Cardinal T. Panel painting by Antoniazzo Romano (15th century), commemorating the foundation of the Pious Association of the Annunciation — Rome, church of S. Maria sopra Minerva, Chapel of the Annunciation.
mista, 41 (1930), pp. 188–217, 291–322; V. BERTRANDO DE TURRE, Colección de docum. inéd. para ilustrar la vida del card. J. de T., in Arch. Fr. Praed., 7 (1937), pp. 210–45; A. Walz, I cardin. domenicani, in Mem. domenic., 37 (1940), pp. 32–33; R. Creytens, Raphaël de Pornaxio auteur du « De potestate papae et concilii generalis » faussement attribué à J. de T., in Arch. Fr. Praed., 13 (1943), pp. 108–37; A. Michel, s. V. in DThC, XV, cols. 1235–39; J. Stockmann, Johannes a Turrecrematu de corpore mystico, Haarlem 1953. Alfonso D'Amato