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 of Pérez Galdós’ larger body of work, the novelas españolas contemporáneas, which offer a panoramic vision of 19th-century Spain.

The pawnbroker’s ambitions bring him position and fortune but not happiness. Although his protagonist is generally portrayed as despicable, Pérez Galdós manages to convey sympathy for this man who has compromised his soul and, in spite of his deceitful nature, is still capable of suffering deeply. The depth of the author’s psychological portrait of Torquemada has earned him comparisons to Gustave Flaubert and Honoré de Balzac.