• Sign up or login, and you'll have full access to opportunities of forum.
Go to CruxDreams.com
It's not an accurate depiction of the foot roasting as it was applied by the Spanish Inquisition. Next time I should read Wikipedia prior to making an image.
Hope you'll enjoy it anyway.
There are so many elements here that are so well done, that I would call this piece (and nearly all of your work actually) a masterpiece. Images of suffering during medieval times are huge turn on for me, and your work 'does it' for me every single time. Thank you Sir for sharing.
 
A 'good torture scene' is a priceless possession. The usual Inquisition method of foot roasting was to place the victim (often referred to as a "patient") on a horizontal platform near the floor and secure the ankles in some sort of restraint. The bare feet were them rubbed with fat or some such grease and exposed to a low fire of coals. The fat sizzled; the "patient" groaned in agony and the process might be interrupted by a kind of shield inserted between the coals and the feet.

If satisfaction was not forthcoming, the shield was removed and the feet again exposed. Basting with oil kept the attention of the poor victim and the low fire could be refreshed by using a bellows to intensify the burning. It was a really awful torture, and it could be prolonged as the fat acted as something of an insulator, allowing the physical damage to be delayed and the pain prolonged. Yikes! it makes your skin crawl!
 
@Bubble,

Thanks for the illustrations of "mancuerda" as brought up by vadim69. I had not seen any of these before.

I read a description of this method in some work on the Inquisition. The wife of an official in Spain was accused of Jewish practice since she did not eat pork. She was stripped naked, placed on a horizontal platform. She was tortured with the cords and subjected to the water torture at the same time. Transcription of her speech during this ordeal was cited. As I can remember, she screamed and begged them to stop so that she could "remember what I have to say." Among the other pleas were "My arms are breaking!" and "You are killing me!" When the water torture was added, and there was a pause, she pleaded "Please! I cannot breathe and am sick in the stomach."

From the transcript, the cords were turned "sixteen times until they broke." That seems unlikely as it would probably have been the destruction of her limbs. After all that, she was deposited in a cell for four days "to stiffen up." Then she was returned to the torturers, and when once again stripped, she broke down and confessed to what they wanted. At a later time, she was "reconciled to Holy Mother Church." (I may not remember all that word-for-word, but it's close.)

Gotta love Holy Mother Church!

It is a chilling feeling thinking about the poor woman, and visualizing her awaiting more torture, her arms so cruelly damaged. One may wonder what effect there was on her stomach and intestines, her kidneys, her bladder, from the water. Was she humiliated and degraded by pissing herself before the torturers...and the others in attendance?

There were transcripts, so evidently it all actually happened. As actual practice, it is frightening. As fantasy, it is exciting.
Her name was Elvira del Campo. Here is her story: https://books.google.at/books?id=rKOLDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA13&lpg
 
History of inquistion in Italian with several drawings: https://www.storiologia.it/inquisizione/libro5.htm
I recall reading somewhere that the Inquisition in Rome, and in the Papal States generally, was more severe than in Spain/Portugal. The prescribed tortures were similar, but applied more readily in Italian (Papal) locations than in Spain.

One wonders how often the accused - especially women - were exposed to sexual tortures (not provided by canon law) or to rape. Probably more frequently than we know of. No transcripts would have been kept.
 
I recall reading somewhere that the Inquisition in Rome, and in the Papal States generally, was more severe than in Spain/Portugal. The prescribed tortures were similar, but applied more readily in Italian (Papal) locations than in Spain.

One wonders how often the accused - especially women - were exposed to sexual tortures (not provided by canon law) or to rape. Probably more frequently than we know of. No transcripts would have been kept.
I'll only intervene for some information , some historical notes: the Roman Inquisition was "milder" than the Spanish one and was directly subjected to papal power. The Spanish one, however, was much more cruel and persecuted mainly heretics, Jews and Muslims, then also alleged witches and sorcerers. Contrary to the Roman one, the Spanish Holy Inquisition depended on the King and not on the Pope, a privilege granted to the Catholic King (or Queen) of Spain who had opposed the advance of the Muslims. Although it has gone down in history as the most ferocious Inquisition, in reality the real ferocious witch hunts took place in Northern European countries (for example Germany). The witches persecuted, tortured and then burned were mostly poor women from the common people and often elderly, rarely young virgins. However, there will certainly have been rapes in those prisons, as always happens…
 
Last edited:
The terror of the ladies as they are stripped is palpable (the lady on the right is already nude). One is stoic; one is frightened. Perhaps they are only being shown what can be done to them, and that is terrifying enough. The preparation and the anticipation are psychological tortures in themselves.
 
Back
Top Bottom