of government and church posts and disqualified them from testifying in legal proceedings. The legal status of conversos thus came into question. The dispute spread outside Castile and came to the attention of Pope Nicholas V. On the urging of Torquemada the Pope issued a bull condemning discrimination against conversos; he excommunicated Sarmiento and some of his followers. In 1450 Torquemada published a tract — a "sharp and relentless" theological attack — in which he labelled Sarmiento and his followers as Midianites and Ishmaelites, the biblical enemies of the Israelite people, comparing them to the evil persecutor Haman. Torquemada's defence of conversos was successful in Rome, but not eventually in Castile. (Juan de Torquemada was an uncle of the Inquisitor, Tomás de Torquemada. It has been argued that the latter's persecution of crypto-Jews was motivated by a sense of insecurity about his own origins.) Torquemada has been described as the most articulate papal apologist of the fifteenth century. The medieval papacy's supremacy was challenged both by Hussites (early Protestants) and by conciliarists (who held that an ecumenical council of the Church had more authority than a pope). The Council of Basel had attempted to depose Pope Eugenius IV. Torquemada attacked both these positions in his Summa de ecclesia (1453). Torquemada promoted reform of religious houses of his order and of monasteries. In 1456, the new Pope Callixtus III, aka Alfonso de Borja, gave him, in commendam, the position of Abbot of the monastery of Santa Scolastica in Subiaco. This connection may explain his interest in the importation of printing into Rome. The cardinal wrote extensively on behalf of papal primacy. Most notably, his Summa de ecclesia defended the Church against the Hussites and the Roman pontiff against conciliarism. Torquemada became cardinal priest of Santa Maria in Trastevere (1446-1460), then cardinal bishop of Palestrina (1460-1463), and last cardinal bishop of Sabina (1463-1468). He participated in four papal elections, casting the deciding vote in the election of Pope Nicholas V (1447–1455). He died at Rome in 1468 and was buried at Santa Maria sopra Minerva. A painting by Antoniazzo Romano showing the Annunciation has in its background Torquemada presenting girls who received dowry funds from a guild he founded to the Virgin Mary. (At an earlier age he was painted by Fra Angelico in a Crucifixion scene now at Harvard University's Fogg Museum.) Works Torquemada's principal works are: Meditationes, seu Contemplationes devotissimae