The Trial of Catarina de Orta by the Goa Inquisition sheds light on the workings of the Goa Inquisition (1560 - 1812) as also the social world of New Christians in Goa.
The Trial of Catarina de Orta by the Goa Inquisition sheds light on the workings of the Goa Inquisition (1560 – 1812) as also the social world of New Christians in Goa. Catarina de Orta, sister of Garcia de Orta, widely regarded among the famous Renaissance scholars of Portugal, were New Christians, i.e Iberians Catholics with Jewish ancestry. Catharina was tried by the Goa Inquisition in 1569. She was accused of practicing Jewish rites for which she was burnt at the stake by the secular authorities, a punishment carried out on rare occasions in Goa. The book also discusses the strategies that she and her family deployed to try and skirt the suspicion of the Inquisition which was always looming over their heads.
Catarina’s is one of the few trials, the processos, to have survived. Thus, the exceptional nature of the case and the archival document makes this book a very important contribution to the subject of the Goa Inquisition.