"Tomás de Torquemada, the 15th‑century Dominican friar, has long been the poster child of the Spanish Inquisition. His name became shorthand for the cruelty of a system that hunted “heretics” with a zeal that burned more than bodies—it burned the boundaries of conscience. Modern historians such as Henry Kamen have dismantled the Enlightenment caricature of Torquemada as a crude, uneducated bureaucrat. He was, in fact, intelligent, well‑read, and utterly convinced he was serving God. That, precisely, made him dangerous. The Catholic Church would later apologize for the excesses committed under his watch."