Diego de Deza

Diego de Deza y Tavera OP (* 1443 in Toro ; † June 9, 1523 in Seville ) was a Spanish Dominican . He worked as a professor of theology at the University of Salamanca , as a teacher to Crown Prince John of Aragon and Castile and as Inquisitor General of the Spanish Inquisition . He was successively Bishop of Zamora , Salamanca , Jaén and Palencia . From 1504 to 1523 he was Archbishop of Seville .

Origin and education

Diego de Deza y Tavera's parents were Antonio de Deza and Inés de Tavera. There were important clerics in both the father's and mother's families, who came from the Galician nobility. His brothers were Antonio de Deza, first knight of Toro, judge in Valladolid and Álvaro de Deza, knight of the Order of San Juan. His sister Ana was married to Gómez de Tello, a regidor of the military orders.

At the age of 16 Diego de Deza entered the Dominican order in the monastery of San Ildefonso in Toro. He received his training in the monastery de San Esteban in Salamanca and studied philosophy and theology at the university there.

Activity as a teacher

From 1477 he taught at the University of Salamanca as a representative of the famous theologian Pedro Martínez de Osma. After his death in 1480 he took over his chair for theology. In 1486, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand commissioned him to train Crown Prince John of Aragon and Castile . He carried out this activity until Johann's death on October 4, 1497.

Columbus

Fray Diego de Deza was a patron and friend of the Genoese Christopher Columbus . It is not known whether Diego de Deza met Columbus as early as 1484 when he arrived in Castile or not until 1486 at the royal court.

Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand convened a commission in the last months of 1486, headed by Hernando de Talavera , to examine Columbus' plans. This commission, which met in Salamanca, also included the newly appointed Head of House of Prince Johann, Diego de Deza. During his stay in Salamanca, Columbus lived in the monastery of San Esteban. Diego de Deza was the prior of the monastery for a long time. With both the monks and the professors of the university, closed events were held at which Columbus presented his plans. The court left Salamanca at the end of January 1487 without the Talaveras commission having issued a judgment on Columbus' plans. The finding that the Commission did not consider Columbus 'plans to be feasible was influenced in particular by the cosmographers' calculations. The rulers let Columbus know that they were not currently interested in the plan, that they had other more pressing matters to attend to, and that they would come back to it later when the opportunity was better. Behind this answer, which avoided any reference to the unfavorable decision of the congregation, the skillful influence of Diego de Deca is suspected.

Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand again convened a commission in 1491 under the leadership of Hernando de Talavera. The proponents of Columbus' plans carried more weight than on previous occasions. But that was not enough to prevent the project from being rejected. The cosmographers and the seafarers believed that Columbus' calculations were wrong. Their viewpoints prevailed and the final verdict concluded that the plan for the trip was completely impracticable. Diego de Deza, Pedro González de Mendoza, Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo and the chamberlain Alonso de Quintanilla still stood up for Columbus. The offer of extensive assumption of costs by Luis de Santángel led the monarchs to have further negotiations with Columbus. Hernando de Talavera and Diego de Deza should meet with Christopher Columbus to reach an agreement. The result of these negotiations were the Capitulaciones de Santa Fe .

Church career

After Diego de Deza's entry into the Dominican order, he went through an educational program as a descendant of a noble family that gave him the theological and philosophical knowledge that were the prerequisites for a career in the church hierarchy. His first leading position was that of the prior of the Monastery of San Esteban in Salamanca. During the time in which he was active as the teacher of Crown Prince Johann, he was appointed to the higher-valued bishop's seats. Since he was too busy as a trainer for the Crown Prince and court chaplain, he could not personally take care of the pastoral affairs of his diocese and also not be present there, prerequisites that were not strictly required by the bishops at the time. When he was appointed Bishop of Zamora, in April 1494 Bishop of Salamanca in June 1494 and Bishop of Jaén in July 1497, it was a question of granting him an income at the expense of the Church. When he was appointed Bishop of Palencia, he had been the Inquisitor General of the Spanish Inquisition for several years. After actually assuming the office of Archbishop of Seville in 1506, into which he was elected in 1504 and resigning from the office of Inquisitor General in 1507, he devoted himself to his duties as Archbishop with all his might.

In 1523 he was appointed Archbishop of Toledo . The Archbishop of Toledo was the Primate of Spain and was usually made a cardinal. Diego de Deza was unable to take up the post due to illness and died in 1523.

Activity as inquisitor general

After the death of the first Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition , Tomás de Torquemada , on December 1, 1498, Diego de Deza, at the time Bishop of Jaén, on the proposal of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Pope Alexander VI. appointed Inquisitor General of Castile, León and Granada. In September 1499 he also became Inquisitor General of the kingdoms of the Crown of Aragon ( Kingdom of Aragon , Principality of Catalonia and Kingdom of Valencia ) located on the Spanish peninsula . In order to relieve the Grand Inquisitor Tomás de Torquemada in his work, four deputy general inquisitors were appointed in June 1494. These were not dismissed when Diego de Deca was appointed. It seems that he hardly intervened in the affairs of the Inquisition for the first two years. On August 26, 1500, Pope Alexander VI appointed Diego de Deza, now Bishop of Palencia, as sole appeal judge on matters of faith in the kingdoms of the Crown of Castile and the Crown of Aragon.

After Queen Isabella's death in 1504, King Ferdinand, as regent for his daughter Johanna in Castile, did not make any personal changes to the Spanish Inquisition. The new royal couple Johanna and Philipp were rather hostile to the Inquisition. Although King Philip had ordered Diego de Deza to cease all activities of the Spanish Inquisition until his arrival, the Inquisitor General, under the protection of King Ferdinand, did not obey the order. Upon his arrival in Castile, King Philip removed a number of civil servants from their offices, including the chairman of the Spanish Inquisition Diego de Deza. After the death of King Philip on September 25, 1506, these people returned to their offices. In 1507 Ferdinand took over the reign of his daughter Johanna again. Some inquisition proceedings, such as the one against Hernando de Talavera, the Archbishop of Granada, which began with the approval of Inquisitor General Diego de Deza but were suppressed by the Pope, resulted in King Ferdinand also losing his trust in Diego de Deza as Inquisitor General and him called for resignation. However, this resignation only related to the work with the Spanish Inquisition. His office as Archbishop of Seville was not affected.

Diego de Dezas funerary monument in Seville Cathedral

Death and Tombs

Diego de Deza died on June 9, 1523 in the monastery of San Jerónimo de Buenavista in Seville. He was buried in the church of the Colegio de Santo Tomás. After the tomb was destroyed at the beginning of the 19th century, a new tomb was created in 1884 in the Capilla de San Pedro built by his nephew Juan Pardo de Tavera in the Cathedral of Seville.

literature

José Barrado Barquilla: Diego de Deza y Tavera. Real Academia de la Historia, 2018, accessed May 20, 2019 (Spanish).
Armando Cotarelo y Valledor: Fray Diego de Deza . ensayos biográfico. J. Perales y Martínez, Madrid 1902, p. XXX (Spanish, 432 pp., [9] [accessed January 1, 2020]).
José Gámez Martín: Inquisición, mitra y carisma. Don Fray Diego de Deza, arzobispo de Sevilla . Brevísima aproximación a un hombre y su época. In: Felipe Lorenzana de la Puente, Francisco J. Mateos Ascacíbar (ed.): Jornadas de historia de Llerena . Llerena 2014, ISBN 978-84-606-7656-0 , p. 163–176 (Spanish, [10] [accessed January 1, 2020]).

Individual evidence

^ José Gámez Martín: Inquisición, mitra y carisma. Don Fray Diego de Deza, arzobispo de Sevilla . Brevísima aproximación a un hombre y su época. In: Felipe Lorenzana de la Puente, Francisco J. Mateos Ascacíbar (ed.): Jornadas de historia de Llerena . Llerena 2014, ISBN 978-84-606-7656-0 , p. 165 (Spanish, [1] [accessed January 1, 2020]).
^ José Gámez Martín: Inquisición, mitra y carisma. Don Fray Diego de Deza, arzobispo de Sevilla . Brevísima aproximación a un hombre y su época. In: Felipe Lorenzana de la Puente, Francisco J. Mateos Ascacíbar (ed.): Jornadas de historia de Llerena . Llerena 2014, ISBN 978-84-606-7656-0 , p. 165 (Spanish, [2] [accessed January 1, 2020]).
^ Armando Cotarelo y Valledor: Fray Diego de Deza . ensayos biográfico. J. Perales y Martínez, Madrid 1902, p. 285 (Spanish, [3] [accessed January 1, 2020]).
^ Miguel Molina Martínez: Fray Hernando de Talavera y Colón . In: Navegamérica . No. 1 , 2008, ISSN 1989-211X , p. 5 ff . (Spanish, [4] [accessed July 1, 2019]).
^ Miguel Molina Martínez: Fray Hernando de Talavera y Colón . In: Navegamérica . No. 1 , 2008, ISSN 1989-211X , p. 7 (Spanish, [5] [accessed July 1, 2019]).
^ Miguel Molina Martínez: Fray Hernando de Talavera y Colón . In: Navegamérica . No. 1 , 2008, ISSN 1989-211X , p. 9 (Spanish, [6] [accessed July 1, 2019]).
↑ José Barrado Barquilla: Diego de Deza y Tavera. Real Academia de la Historia, 2018, accessed May 20, 2019 (Spanish).
↑ P. Bernardino Llorca SJ (ed.): Bulario pontificio de la Inquisición española en su período constitucional (1478-1525) . Pontificia Universita Gregoriana, Rome 1949, p. 184 (Spanish, [7] [accessed October 1, 2019]).
↑ P. Bernardino Llorca SJ (ed.): Bulario pontificio de la Inquisición española en su período constitucional (1478-1525) . Pontificia Universita Gregoriana, Rome 1949, p. 197 (Spanish, [8] [accessed October 1, 2019]).
^ Ana Cristina Cuadro García: Acción inquisitorial contra los judaizantes en Córdoba y crisis eclesiástica (1482–1508) . In: Revista de historia moderna: Anales de la Universidad de Alicante . No. 21 , 2003, ISSN 1989-9823 , p. 22 (Spanish, unirioja.es [accessed October 1, 2019]).

personal data
SURNAME	Deza, Diego de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Deza, Diego
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Spanish theologian and inquisitor
DATE OF BIRTH	1443
PLACE OF BIRTH	Toro
DATE OF DEATH	June 9, 1523
Place of death	Seville

[1] José Gámez Martín: Inquisición, mitra y carisma. Don Fray Diego de Deza, arzobispo de Sevilla . Brevísima aproximación a un hombre y su época. In: Felipe Lorenzana de la Puente, Francisco J. Mateos Ascacíbar (ed.): Jornadas de historia de Llerena . Llerena 2014, ISBN 978-84-606-7656-0 , p. 165 (Spanish, [1] [accessed January 1, 2020]).

[2] José Gámez Martín: Inquisición, mitra y carisma. Don Fray Diego de Deza, arzobispo de Sevilla . Brevísima aproximación a un hombre y su época. In: Felipe Lorenzana de la Puente, Francisco J. Mateos Ascacíbar (ed.): Jornadas de historia de Llerena . Llerena 2014, ISBN 978-84-606-7656-0 , p. 165 (Spanish, [2] [accessed January 1, 2020]).

[3] Armando Cotarelo y Valledor: Fray Diego de Deza . ensayos biográfico. J. Perales y Martínez, Madrid 1902, p. 285 (Spanish, [3] [accessed January 1, 2020]).

[4] Miguel Molina Martínez: Fray Hernando de Talavera y Colón . In: Navegamérica . No. 1 , 2008, ISSN 1989-211X , p. 5 ff . (Spanish, [4] [accessed July 1, 2019]).

[5] Miguel Molina Martínez: Fray Hernando de Talavera y Colón . In: Navegamérica . No. 1 , 2008, ISSN 1989-211X , p. 7 (Spanish, [5] [accessed July 1, 2019]).

[6] Miguel Molina Martínez: Fray Hernando de Talavera y Colón . In: Navegamérica . No. 1 , 2008, ISSN 1989-211X , p. 9 (Spanish, [6] [accessed July 1, 2019]).

[7] José Barrado Barquilla: Diego de Deza y Tavera. Real Academia de la Historia, 2018, accessed May 20, 2019 (Spanish).

[8] P. Bernardino Llorca SJ (ed.): Bulario pontificio de la Inquisición española en su período constitucional (1478-1525) . Pontificia Universita Gregoriana, Rome 1949, p. 184 (Spanish, [7] [accessed October 1, 2019]).

[9] P. Bernardino Llorca SJ (ed.): Bulario pontificio de la Inquisición española en su período constitucional (1478-1525) . Pontificia Universita Gregoriana, Rome 1949, p. 197 (Spanish, [8] [accessed October 1, 2019]).

[10] Ana Cristina Cuadro García: Acción inquisitorial contra los judaizantes en Córdoba y crisis eclesiástica (1482–1508) . In: Revista de historia moderna: Anales de la Universidad de Alicante . No. 21 , 2003, ISSN 1989-9823 , p. 22 (Spanish, unirioja.es [accessed October 1, 2019]).