Diego de Castilla (1510/15-1584) was a Spanish cleric who served as

dean Dean may refer to: People * Dean (given name) * Dean (surname), a surname of Anglo-Saxon English origin * Dean (South Korean singer), a stage name for singer Kwon Hyuk * Dean Delannoit, a Belgian singer most known by the mononym Dean Titles * ...

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. He was a patron of the painter El Greco.

Family

Castilla inherited the position of dean of Toledo on the death of his father in 1545. Castilla was of Jewish blood, and this became a major issue for him in 1547, when

Juan Martínez Silíceo Juan Martínez Silíceo (1486–1557) was a Spanish Roman Catholic bishop, cardinal and mathematician. Biography Juan Martínez Silíceo was born in Villagarcía de la Torre in 1486, the son of Juan Martínez Guijeno, a poor laborer, and Juana M ...

the

archbishop of Toledo This is a list of Bishops and Archbishops of Toledo ( la, Archidioecesis Metropolitae Toletana).

, passed a statute of

cleanliness of blood The concept of (), (, ) or (), literally "cleanliness of blood" and meaning "blood purity", was an early system of racialized discrimination used in early modern Spain and Portugal. The label referred to those who were considered "Old Chri ...

, excluding from ecclesiastical office and benefices anyone with a trace of Jewish lineage over four generations. Therefore, Castilla developed an obsession for genealogy, working tirelessly to prove his family's links to Spain's medieval kings.M. Irving
How to beat the Spanish Inquisition
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Patron of the arts

On 2 July 1577,

El Greco Domḗnikos Theotokópoulos ( el, Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος ; 1 October 1541 7 April 1614), most widely known as El Greco ("The Greek"), was a Greek painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. "El G ...

was formally engaged by Diego de Castilla to paint three altarpieces for the church of a

Cistercian convent Cistercian nuns are female members of the Cistercian Order, a religious order belonging to the Roman Catholic branch of the Catholic Church. History The first Cistercian monastery for women, Le Tart Abbey, was established at Tart-l'Abbaye in th ...

, the Monastery of Santo Domingo el Antiguo in Toledo. The main altarpiece included images of the ''

Assumption of the Virgin The Assumption of Mary is one of the four Catholic_Mariology#Dogmatic_teachings, Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church. Pope Pius XII defined it in 1950 in his apostolic constitution ''Munificentissimus Deus'' as follows: We proclaim and d ...

'' and ''The Trinity'', subjects of central theological importance.* Mark Irving regards these commissions as "a public declaration that he, a leading national figure in the battle against the

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

heresy Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...

, could be trusted to support the theological argument of the Catholic church". El Greco also undertook the renowned '' El Espolio'' as a commission from Castilla.

References

1510s births 1584 deaths 16th-century Spanish Roman Catholic priests People from Toledo, Spain Year of birth uncertain University of Salamanca alumni {{RC-clergy-stub