few days ago, we were all family Cantabrian land, always enjoying the beautiful scenery, gastronomy and capricious surround climate. In this case the lot is allied with us and enjoy a blazing sun, in the north is even more beautiful. As desktop to a good tasting dishes, we decided to walk around lost in the medieval charm of Santillana del Mar. There we stopped to investigate his "Museum of Torture"
The museum is housed in a building owned particularly in Santillana del Mar, halfway between the town hall square and the Collegiate. It displays a private collection of 'European instruments of torture and capital punishment. "
This is a sample of more than fifty pieces to be exhibited for the first time in 1983 in Florence. The group has been assembled by a group of Europeans and Americans and includes instruments from the early fourteenth century until the late nineteenth. There
original objects, antiques purchased or collected in different places, and several reconstructions from pieces or fragments of the originals. The collection is the generic title "Inquisition," but is more of a claim and that the Holy Office did not use most of these instruments. In fact, the practice of torture was something widespread in criminal courts across Europe and in other similar institutions that existed in our country Inquisition Catholics and Protestants of all West
Although the bulk of the sample is in a room on the first floor of the building, on both sides of the front garden have been installed large instruments, which have been attached, as decorative elements, simulated skeletons. You can see an executioner after death with an ax, which preserves the original Italian sheet seventeenth century with which he cut off his head or limbs. There are also cages Hanging eighteenth century iron and wood, restored in 1982, in which prisoners were confined, a reconstruction of a ladder rack, suspending the execution of a guillotine and two rounds of tear repaired from authentic items. On the stairs to the exhibition hall have been placed a series of panels with pictures and a copy of the seal of the English Inquisition, a powerful repressive organization created to preserve the purity of Catholicism, which worked with varying intensity between 1480 and 1834.
objects are distributed on the first floor a large room in which, with certain lighting, it seeks to play a dark environment. They are accompanied by information panels and numerous reproductions of illustrations and recorded with gruesome images.
1. For exemplary punishment and public humiliation . are objects that you placed the defendant to prove humiliating public display and so was insulted and assaulted. The so-called 'masks infamous ", of which there are two from Germany, who were placed are not in accordance with their behavior to conventional norms established. The "trap" or "chute" from Austria, with which the victim was exposed in the street with their feet and hands imprisoned. The "straw braid" to identify as a sign of shame to the young women pregnant before marriage. The "flute troublemaker ', of Italian origin, used for blasphemy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which, fastened at the neck, also imprisoned his fingers with the pressure he wanted the executioner. "The pillory of the barrel", part of Austrian origin for drunks who should bear its weight. "The violin of the midwives' piece of wood used in Switzerland and Germany, which was placed around his neck to immobilize and cause pain. Here also meet different collars for smokers, gamblers, bums or who do not fulfill their religious obligations.
2. Vincualdos objects to physical punishment and torture of prisoners.
Its purpose was to punish or cause a long tormenting pain, but did not cause death. The "truck" in forced labor, the 'handles' and ankle "or" pinch collar "to freeze in pain, the various" weapons of the guards', the' clips' and 'claws'; instruments to cut the language or maul, 'bar', 'iron' after being put into the fire served to mark the victim as if it were an animal, the clamp or "bib iron", the "ordeal water "by which a funnel was placed the victim that forced him to swallow all the liquid desired by the executioner useful to run the torture of" drop by drop. "
One of the most striking parts of the museum is the 'Iron Lady', a copy of the original German. This is a huge coffin-shaped doll whose walls were placed spikes that pierced the victim when he was locked inside, to prolong his agony.
also call attention to the "Cradle of Judas," a kind of pyramid of wood or iron on which was suspended in a controlled manner to the accused through a series of artiluigios, "the interrogation chair," full of iron spikes distributed over all surfaces of the chair, or the famous "Pony", which produced a similar torment of the so-called wheel shatter. "
3. Instruments whose ultimate aim was to implement.
Its function is to directly cause death and this was achieved of the most picturesque and in any case, after the defendant felt that the torment that he charged was the cause. The popular "club" is a necklace or ring of iron which is positioned to hold the inmate's neck to a pole anchored in the ground. At the height of the neck of the victim whose executioner place the tourniquet to spin it kills the person.
Another instrument of execution is the "Skull Crack" or "crushing heads', of Venetian origin but from a private collection of Virginia, U.S.. They are also taught "the executioner's sword ',' whips to skin", "the gallows", "impalement", "Saw" eighteenth-century English piece to wrap the body in two halves and in the century XV applied to homosexuals, and "hanging cages", an iron and a reconstituted wood.
4. Instruments created specifically to torture women.
few objects were not designed to torture and cause suffering to women accused of witchcraft, prostitution or adultery. The "pear oral, rectal or vaginal" of Venetian origin, is a sadistic torture device that tore ruin the body parts that are introduced. Have also met several examples of humiliating as famous as "chastity belts", Venetian and Florentine home. Other devices that are seen are the so-called "breast ripper", "San Telmo belt" and "spiked hair shirt."
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