ISABELLA OF CASTILE 

Exceptional destinies

An episode from the series SECRETS OF HISTORY - PORTRAITS

Synopsis

After seizing the throne in 1474, Isabella of Castile, known as Isabella "the Catholic", took Spain back from the Muslim occupants and raised the peninsula to the rank of a great power of the Middle Ages. She was also the one who bankrolled Christopher Columbus' trip to India in 1492.

A true myth in Spain, and for some deserving beatification, Isabella the Catholic has much blood on her hands. Indeed, alongside her husband, she helped establish the gruesome Inquisition, an instrument of terror that lasted almost four centuries.