Two American Hispanicists point to a Toledo family persecuted by the Inquisition as the key to the enigma of the most widely disseminated work of the Golden Age: ‘La Celestina’.
The six Lucena sisters —Beatriz, Catalina, Guiomar, Leonor, Teresa and Juana— could have been erased from history, but the bloodthirsty inquisitors had an obsessive habit: leaving everything in writing. The Holy Office of Toledo announced in 1485 that it would have mercy on heretics who came to denounce themselves.
The Lucena sisters, aged between 16 and 27, hesitated, but went to beg for penance. They were considered marranas, coming from a family of converted Jews and suspected of secretly practicing their old religion. Teresa and Leonor, still teenagers, admitted that they participated in Jewish festivals in their town, La Puebla de Montalbán. Catalina, who was 25 years old, confessed that she had helped her father in a printing shop for Hebrew texts.
