- Jacques de Molay
Jacques de Molay (est. 1244–5/1249–50 – 18 March 1314), a minor Frankish noble, served as the 23rd and officially last Grand Master of the Knights Templar. He is probably the best known Templar besides the order's founder and first grand master, Hugues de Payens. Upon his election before 20 April 1292, he promised to reform the order and adjust it to the situation in the Middle East. With no crusader states remaining to protect and with other problems surfacing, … - Christian Martyrs
A Christian martyr is one who, without seeking his own death or any harm to others, is murdered or put to death for his religious faith or convictions. Many Christian martyrs suffered cruel and torturous deaths like stoning, crucifixion, and burning at the stake. The word 'martyr' comes from the Greek word translated "witness." Martyrdom is a form of religious persecution. The first Christian martyr was Saint Stephen as recorded in the who was stoned to death for his faith. - Henry Charles Lea
Henry Charles Lea (September 19, 1825 - October 24, 1909) was an American historian, civic reformer, and political activist. Lea was born and lived in Philadelphia. His father, Isaac Lea (1792-1886) was a distinguished naturalist and a member of the "American Philosophical Society", and was by profession a publisher. Isaac Lea was descended from a Philadelphia Quaker family, and was born in Wilmington, Delaware. - Bernard Gui
Bernard Gui, also known as Bernardo Gui or Bernardus Guidonis, was an inquisitor of the Dominican Order in the Late Middle Ages during the Medieval Inquisition, Bishop of Lodève, and one of the most prolific writers of the Middle Ages. He is known for his tenure as Inquisitor of Toulouse against the Albigenses at the behest of Pope Clement V between 1307 and 1323. - Heinrich Kramer
Heinrich Kramer (also known under Latinised name Heinrich Institoris, c. 1430 -1505) was a German churchman and inquisitor. Born in Schlettstadt, Alsace, he joined the Dominican Order at an early age and while still a young man was appointed Prior of the Dominican house of his native town. At some date before 1474 he was appointed Inquisitor for the Tyrol, Salzburg, Bohemia and Moravia. - Noah Gordon
Noah Gordon (born November 11, 1926 in Worcester, Massachusetts) is an American novelist. Some of the topics covered within his novels include medical history, and medical ethics, and more recently he has begun to focus more on themes relating to the Inquisition, and Jewish cultural history. - Jean Bodin
Jean Bodin (1530-1596) was a French jurist and political philosopher, member of the Parlement (not to be confused with the English "Parliament") of Paris and professor of Law in Toulouse. He is best known for his theory of sovereignty. Bodin lived during the Reformation, writing against the background of religious and civil conflict-particularly that, in his native France, between the (Calvinist) Huguenots and the state-supported Catholic Church. - Maria Celeste
Sister Maria Celeste, born Virginia Gamba on August 16, 1600, was the daughter of Galileo Galilei and Marina Gamba. She was the eldest of three siblings: sister Livia and brother Vincenzio. All three children were born out of wedlock, and their father considered daughters Virginia and Livia unmarriageable. He entered them into San Matteo convent shortly after Virginia's thirteenth birthday. Virginia chose her new name, Maria Celeste, in honor of the virgin Mary, … - Tommaso Campanella
Tommaso Campanella (September 5, 1568-May 21, 1639), baptized Giovanni Domenico Campanella, was an Italian philosopher, theologian, astrologer, and poet - Diego de Landa
Diego de Landa Calderón was Bishop of Yucatán. He left future generations with a mixed legacy in his writings which contain much valuable information on pre-Columbian Maya civilization, and his actions which destroyed much of that civilization's history, literature, and traditions. Born in Cifuentes, Guadalajara, Spain, he became a Franciscan monk in 1541, and was soon sent as one of the first Franciscans to the Yucatán. - Margaret Of Parma
Margaret, Duchess of Parma (28 December 1522 - 18 January 1586) governor of the Netherlands from 1559 to 1567, was the illegitimate daughter of Charles V. Her mother, Johanna Maria van der Gheynst, a servant of Charles de Lalaing, Seigneur de Montigny, was a Fleming. Margaret was brought up by the Douwrin family, and later by her great-aunt, Margaret of Austria, and her aunt, Maria of Austria, … - Gil Vicente
Gil Vicente <small></small> (born c. 1465; died c.1536 or 1537) was a Portuguese playwright and poet who acted in and directed his own plays. Considered the chief dramatist of Portugal he is sometimes called the "Portuguese Plautus"<sup>[3]</sup> and often referred to as the "Father of Portuguese drama."<sup>[1]</sup> Vicente was attached to the courts of the Portuguese kings Manuel I and John III. - Menocchio
The Friulian miller Menocchio, also known as Domenico Scandella, was born in 1532. His philosophical teachings earned him the title of a heresiarch during the Inquisition and he was eventually burned at the stake in 1599, at the age of 67, on orders of Pope Clement VIII. - Thomas Barnett
Thomas Barnett is an American vocalist/songwriterfrom from Richmond, Virginia. He is best know for currently singing for the melodic hardcore band Strike Anywhere. Barnett has been the lead vocalist for the band since its formation in 1999. He used to be the lead vocalist for the band Inquisition until its disbanding in 1996. - Juan Antonio Llorente
Juan Antonio Llorente (born March 30, 1756 in Rincón de Soto (La Rioja), Spain; died February 5, 1823 in Madrid) was a Spanish historian. He studied at the University of Zaragoza, and, having been ordained priest, became vicar-general to the bishop of Calahorra in 1782. In 1785, he became commissary of the Holy Office (Inquisition) at Logroño and, in 1789, its general secretary at Madrid. - Carlton Sherwood
Carlton Sherwood is an American journalist who produced the anti-John Kerry film "Stolen Honor". Sherwood served on two news teams which were responsible for the award of the Pulitzer Prize and the Peabody Award to their organizations. After working for the "Washington Times", he wrote "Inquisition", a book about Sun Myung Moon, leader of the Unification Church. - Miguel de Molinos
Miguel de Molinos, Spanish divine, the chief apostle of the religious revival known as Quietism, was born about 1628 near Muniesa (Teruel). He entered the priesthood and settled in Rome about 1670. There he became well known as a director of consciences, being on specially friendly terms with Cardinal Odescalchi, who in 1676 became Pope Innocent XI. In the previous year Molinos had published a volume, "Guida spirituale", … - Francisco Pacheco
Francisco Pacheco was a Spanish painter, best known as the teacher of Diego Velázquez and Alonso Cano, and for his textbook on painting that is an important source for the study of 17th-century practice in Spain. He was born at Sanlúcar de Barrameda, son of Juan Pérez and wife Leonor del Río, and moved to Seville at a young age. He was a student of Luis Fernandez, and did much of his learning by copying works of the Italian masters. - Ricardo Palma
Ricardo Palma was a Peruvian author and scholar. Palma led an active life as a naval officer, journalist, and politician before gaining fame as a historian by authoring a book on the Inquisition of Lima, Peru in 1863. He directed the National Library of Peru for many years, rebuilding it after its destruction during the War of the Pacific into one of the top libraries in South America. Through his friendship with Chilean president Domingo Santa María, … - Magdalena de la Cruz
Magdalena de la Cruz was a Franciscan nun of Córdoba in Spain, who for many years was honoured as a saint. On the other hand St. Ignatius Loyola had always regarded her with suspicion. Falling dangerously ill in 1543, Magdalena confessed to a long career of hypocrisy, ascribing most of the marvels to the action of demons by which she was possessed, but maintaining their reality. She was sentenced by the Inquisition, in an auto-da-fé at Córdoba in 1546, … - Alessandro Cagliostro
Count Alessandro di Cagliostro (June 2, 1743 Palermo, Sicily - August 26, 1795 San Leo, Province of Pesaro and Urbino) was claimed by the Catholic Church to be the alias for the charlatan Giuseppe Balsamo, an Italian traveller, and occultist. - Antonin Gadal
Antonin Gadal (1897-1962) was a French mystic and historian who dedicated his life to study of the Cathars in the south of France, their spirituality, beliefs and ideology. - Pietro D'Abano
Pietro d'Abano also known as "Petrus De Apono" or "Aponensis" (ca. 1250 - ca. 1316) was an Italian philosopher, astrologer and professor of medicine in Padua. He was born in the Italian town from which he takes his name, now Abano Terme. He gained fame by writing "Conciliator Differentiarum, quœ inter Philosophos et Medicos Versantur". He was eventually accused of heresy and atheism, and came before the Inquisition. - Guillaume de Puylaurens
Guillaume de Puylaurens is a 13th century Latin chronicler, author of a history of Catharism and of the Albigensian Crusade. He was born soon after 1200 at Toulouse, where he perhaps studied at the nascent university and gained the title of "Master". He worked with bishop Foulques around 1228 to 1230. He was curé at Puylaurens (Tarn) from 1237 to 1240 (whence his name) and during this period was close to Foulques' successor as bishop, Raimond du Fauga. - Leandro Fernández de Moratín
Leandro Fernández de Moratín was a Spanish dramatist, translator and neoclassical poet. He was the son of Nicolás Fernández de Moratín (1737-1780), who was a major literary reformer in Spain from 1762 until his death in 1780. Distrusting the teaching offered in Spain's universities at the time, Leandro grew up in the rich literary environment of his father and became an admirer of Enlightenment thought. - Bartolomé Carranza
Bartolomé Carranza, Spanish theologian, sometimes called de Miranda or de Carranza y Miranda, younger son of Pedro Carranza, a man of noble family, was born at Miranda de Arga, Navarre, in 1503. He studied at Alcalá from 1515 to 1520, where Sancho Carranza, his uncle, was professor, entering in 1520 the Dominican order, and then, from 1521 to 1525, at Salamanca and at Valladolid, where from 1527 he was teacher of theology. - Isaac Aboab da Fonseca
Isaac Aboab da Fonseca (February 1st, 1605 - April 4th, 1693) was a rabbi, scholar, kabbalist and writer. In 1656, he was one of several elders within the Portuguese-Israelite community in the Netherlands who excommunicated Baruch Spinoza for the statements this philosopher made concerning (the nature of) God. Isaac Aboab da Fonseca was born in the Portuguese town of Castro d'Ayre as Simao da Fonseca, a Christian name. - Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa
Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa was a Spanish explorer, author, historian, astronomer, scientist, and humanist. Sarmiento was born in Pontevedra in Galicia. His father Bartolomé Sarmiento was born in Pontevedra and his mother María Gamboa was born in Bilbao in Basque Country. At the age of 18, Sarmiento de Gamboa entered the royal military in the European wars. - Adriano Sofri
Adriano Sofri (Trieste, August 1, 1942), Italian politician, intellectual, journalist, writer. Former leader of the autonomist movement "Lotta Continua" ("Continuous Struggle"') in the 1960s, he was arrested in 1988 and accused of having ordered the execution of Luigi Calabresi, a police officer suspected of having killed the anarchist Giuseppe Pinelli. Sofri, and the others comrades convicted with him, have always proclaimed their innocence. - Bernard Clergue
Bernard Clergue was the town bayle of "Montaillou" in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. A great deal about his life is recorded in the Fournier Register and has been studied by historians, most notably Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie. Bernard was a member of the powerful Clergue family, the wealthiest in the village. He was the son of Pons and Mengarde Clergue and the brother of Pierre Clergue. - Les Daniels
Les Daniels (born 1943) is an American writer of literary criticism, cultural studies and historical horror fiction. He attended Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where he wrote his master's thesis on "Frankenstein", and he has worked as a musician and as a journalist. He is the author of five novels featuring the vampire Don Sebastian de Villanueva, a cynical, … - José Toribio Medina
José Toribio Medina was a Chilean bibliographer. He was born at Santiago, Chile, and was educated for the bar. His first publication, when a very young man, was a metrical translation of Longfellow's "Evangeline". When twenty-two he was appointed secretary to the legation at Lima, Peru. After his return he published a history of Chilean literature (1878), and a work upon the aboriginal tribes (1884). - Isaac Cardoso
Isaac (Fernando) Cardoso was a Jewish physician, philosopher, and polemic writer. He was born of Marrano parents at Celorico in the province of Beira, Portugal in 1603 or 1604 and died at Verona in 1683. He was a brother of Abraham Michael (Miguel) Cardoso. After studying medicine, philosophy, and natural sciences at Salamanca, he settled as physician at Valladolid in 1632, but was soon called as chief physician ("physico mor") to Madrid. - Pedro de Herrera
Pedro de Herrera was a Spanish politician known for his role in the reconquest of Gibraltar and for leading a community of Sefardic Jews who settled for three years in this town. Herrera led a group of Jewish refugees from Córdoba in 1474. Sefardic Gibraltar was granted sovereignty by the Duke of Medina Sidonia. The community grew to over 4,000, who paid taxes to Medina Sidonia and established a garrison of cavalry at his command. This lasted only 2 years though. - Nicholas Eymerich
Nicholas Eymerich (Catalan: "Nicolau Aymerich"; "c." 1320 - 4 January, 1399) was a Roman Catholic theologian and inquisitor general of the Inquisition of the Crown of Aragon in the later half of the 14th century. He is best known for authoring the "Directorium Inquisitorum". - Cecilia Ferrazzi
Cecilia Ferrazzi (1609-1684) was a Counter-Reformation Catholic prototype social worker, whose life was extensively involved with establishment and maintenance of women's houses of refuge in seventeenth century Italy. Born in Venice to a relatively prosperous artisanal family, Ferrazzi aspired to become a nun from an early age, and showed a strong aversion to the idea of marriage. - Aristide Torchia
Aristide Torchia is a fictional character from "The Club Dumas", a 1993 novel by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. The events of the novel take place hundreds of years after Torchia's death, and he is referenced only as an historical figure. He is also mentioned in the film "The Ninth Gate", which is based on the novel. Torchia was born in 1620. He apprenticed in Leyden under the Elzevir family. - Antonio Fernandez Carvajal
Antonio Fernandez Carvajal, in, was a Portuguese Jewish merchant, and the first naturalized English Jew. He was born about 1590, probably at Fundão, Portugal. He appears to have left Fundão on account of the persecution of the Inquisition and, proceeding to the Canary Islands, acquired much property there, made many commercial connections, which led him (about 1635) to London, where he settled in Leadenhall Street. - Isaac de Castro Tartas
Isaac de Castro Tartas was a Marrano and Jewish martyr. Castro Tartas was born in France, where his parents had found refuge. He was a brother of David Castro Tartas, and a relative of the physician Elijah Montalto, and was trained in philosophy and the classical languages. Early in life he went to Paraíba, Brazil, where he lived for several years. Against the wishes of his relatives there, he went later to Bahia dos Santos, where he was recognized as a Jew, … - Amato Lusitano
João Rodrigues de Castelo Branco, better known as Amato Lusitano, was a notable Portuguese Jewish physician of the 16th century. Lusitano was born in Castelo Branco in 1511, of Jewish parents. He studied medicine at the University of Salamanca, Spain. Unable to return to Portugal as he wished, due to the persecutions of the Inquisition, he travelled throughout Europe before settling in Ferrara, Italy, …
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